Also crypto bridge not safe: hack of 100 million on Harmony
A large-scale hack on crypto bridge Harmony once again shows how vulnerable blockchain technology can be.
As if the brutal crypto crash wasn’t bad enough, hackers are also targeting a large crypto bridge platform. About $100 million worth of crypto was stolen from Harmony this week. This means the hack for the crypto market.
Harmony hack
The target for the hack was Horizon, a crypto bridge from the company Harmony. This platform makes it possible to exchange tokens between different blockchains. It is therefore not a crypto trading platform, but a ‘bridge’ between different blockchains.
The company is of course currently working very hard to close the possible vulnerability. The perpetrator’s account has also been identified, but it is presumably very difficult to find out who is behind the account. The anonymous nature of cryptocurrency is often useful, but sometimes not at all…
The hack on Harmony specifically involved the Ethereum blockchain. For example, the Horizon Ethereum Bridge allows users to transfer tokens from the Ethereum blockchain to the Bitcoin blockchain. The buffer where the virtual money is stored has been emptied by the hackers.
Bridge is vulnerable
It is yet another crypto hack, but in this case an additional pattern is visible. In recent times there have been several very large attacks on bridges. Such blockchain conduits time and again prove fundamentally vulnerable. Previously, for example, the Ronin Network and Wormhole bridges were looted for $600 million and $320 million respectively.
So the industry will really have to come up with something to better secure this part of the crypto world. For the time being, on the other hand, it is mopping with the tap open; Harmony is working with the FBI and other agencies, but they will probably never see the money again after the hack.
