Harmony Bridge Exploited for over $100 Million in ETH

On June 24, the Harmony Bridge was hacked and roughly $100 million of ETH stolen, the team has confirmed.

Harmony Bridge Hacked

Harmony is a layer-1 platform that offers high scalability, fast-finality and is interoperable with other networks, including Ethereum and the BNB Chain.

The Harmony Bridge connecting the smart contracting platform to Ethereum was exploited for 85,867.25 ETH or roughly $98 million when writing, according to data streams from Etherscan, the Ethereum explorer.

Confirming the incident, Harmony said they are already working with national authorities and exchanges to prevent further liquidations:

The Harmony team has identified a theft occurring this morning on the Horizon Bridge amounting to approximately $100 mm. We have begun working with national authorities and forensic specialists to identify the culprit and retrieve the stolen funds.

Adding,

We have also notified exchanges and stopped the Horizon Bridge to prevent further transactions. The team is all hands on deck as investigations continue. We will keep everyone up-to-date as we investigate this further and obtain more information.

The Harmony Bridge Connects to Ethereum and the BNB Chain

The Harmony Bridge enables the smooth exchange of fungible and non-fungible tokens between Ethereum, the BNB Chain, and the Harmony networks. In this manner, users with assets on Ethereum or the BNB Chain can swap them to corresponding assets in Harmony, mapped 1:1.

At the same time, funds swapped can be redeemed to the originating address. Moreover, all swaps are smart contracts guided where validators and burning mechanisms are used to guarantee integrity and seamless exchange.

Bitcoin Trustless Bridge Secure

The attacker focused on the Harmony Bridge, as the Bitcoin bi-directional Trustless Bridge was confirmed secure and safe. The trustless bridge is based on the interlay architecture. Through partners, mapped BTC in Harmony can be lent or deposited in DeFi products, effectively putting Bitcoin to work.

Notably, the trustless Bitcoin Bridge allows BTC holders to bridge their coins to Harmony, enabling them to participate in a range of high-yielding DeFi activities in a low fees environment.

Earlier, users assessed that the Harmony Bridge was clunky, technical, and generally hard to use. At the same time, complaints about the number of supported coins were also raised.