Another Crypto Hack Costing Horizon nearly $100 Million
Crypto cannot get a break as another hack occurs just months after the last...
Crypto markets cannot catch a break. Not only is the market taking a big nose dive, but hackers have once again stolen nearly $100 Million in cryptocurrencies from Horizon.
Officials from Horizon have given very limited details of the attack, but the developers behind Horizon say they identified the theft earlier this week. An individual account has since been targeted as the suspect.
“We have begun working with national authorities and forensic specialists to identify the culprit and retrieve the stolen funds.”
The start up said.
The DeFi space is very reliant on blockchain bridges. They offer users a way of transferring assets from one blockchain to the next. For Horizon, users can send tokens from the ETH network to something like Binance’s Smart Chain. Bridges have now become a hot spot for hackers due to the vulnerabilities in their underlying code.
“Bridges maintain large stores of liquidity making them a tempting target for hackers. In order for individuals to use bridges to move their funds, assets are locked on one blockchain and unlocked, or minted, on another. As a result, these services hold large volumes of crypto assets.”
Jess Symington, a blockchain analyst from Elliptic, said.
Harmony and Horizon have yet to disclose how the funds were stolen. Some experts are claiming the breach was the result of a private key compromise. This would mean the hackers obtained the password required to access the wallet that stores the crypto.
This isn’t the first hack of its kind on a blockchain bridge. The Ronin Network lost nearly $600 Million in a breach during March and Wormhole lost over $300 Million just a month earlier.