Ronin Bridge hack became the biggest DEFI heist ever. The Ronin Network team revealed that an unknown hacker exploited the sidechain six days after the original attack. The postmortem audit found that 23 million USDC and 173 million ETH were stolen in two transactions from the Ronin bridge.
Until the situation is resolved, Ronin’s crew has blocked access to the Katana dex and restricted movement on the bridge. The project leaders have contacted concerned authorities as well as listed exchanges.
Ronin Bridge hack cost over $600 million
According to a statement published on March 29, 2022, a hacker has invaded the bridge protocol on Ronin’s Network and stolen a large number of digital assets. According to reports, 173,600 ETH and 25.5 million USDC were taken from the Ronin Bridge.
At current market rates, the hack is worth around $615,200,104. The enormous sum of money might make this attack the most lucrative in decentralized finance (DeFi) history thus far. Most of the stolen cash has been withdrawn from the hacker’s wallet.
The blockchain system is known as Ronin. It’s currently used to power the popular non-fungible token (NFT) game Axie Infinity. Ronin is also a sidechain that utilizes the Ethereum network.
How was Ronin hacked?
According to the report, the hacker exploited the protocol by utilizing stolen private validator keys. Sky Mavis’ Ronin network has nine validator nodes and requires at least five of them to confirm any deposit or withdrawal transaction.
According to the information, four of the validator nodes were taken over by the hacker. A third-party validator operated by Axie DAO was also hacked, giving the hacker the five signatures required to create events on the blockchain.
Two withdrawal operations were triggered when the keys were used. Despite its occurrence on March 23, the team was unaware of it until March 29, when a user made a complaint regarding the ETH withdrawal functionality.
