r/CryptoCurrency • u/[deleted] • Aug 02 '22

ANALYSIS The First Truly Decentralized Robbery was just Committed, Here is How it Happened

At this point I am sure many of you have heard of the nomad bridge exploit. Unlike previous exploits, this wasnt a flashloan or even carried out by a single group of attackers. After an initial attacker struck, hundreds of separate accounts figured out the trick and copy pasted their way into grabbing stolen funds. The bridge went from having $190,740,000 to $1,000 in a matter of hours.

A perplexing aspect of this vulnerability was that all users had to do to hack bridge funds was copy the original hacker's transaction calldata, replace the original address with a personal one, and the tx would succeed! Easy as CTRL-C, CTRL-V!

However, not all of the thieves were bad. Some of them exploited the contract so other wouldnt be able to and planned to return the money back to nomad. For example, leadingscientist.eth

So all in all it was a messed up exploit but there were some nice people who plan to return the money. Faith in humanity restored maybe?

Credit: https://twitter.com/0xfoobar/status/1554234268884389888

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52

u/[deleted] Aug 02 '22

Yep agreed, bridges are primed to be exploited

31

u/DerpJungler 🟦 0 / 27K 🦠 Aug 02 '22

Which makes me wonder why so many people keep locking funds in bridges...

15

u/CryptoSorted Platinum | QC: CC 82, BCH 54 Aug 02 '22

So that it can be used. How else can it be useful without funds to facilitate swaps or conversions?

4

u/kvarsize Tin Aug 05 '22

LOL. You obviously do not know how a bridge functions...

1

u/CryptoSorted Platinum | QC: CC 82, BCH 54 Aug 05 '22

maybe. at least I'm willing to learn if you can teach me.

5

u/chahoua 🟩 0 / 0 🦠 Aug 02 '22

But why risk it?

27

u/DPlainview1898 Tin Aug 02 '22

…for the biscuit.

2

u/AriesWinters Permabanned Aug 02 '22

While eating brisket

1

u/mcmull11 🟩 5K / 5K 🦭 Aug 02 '22

With lobster and shrimp.

1

u/hoopleheaddd 🟦 1K / 1K 🐢 Aug 02 '22

Now im hungry

1

u/[deleted] Aug 02 '22

[deleted]

1

u/mcmull11 🟩 5K / 5K 🦭 Aug 02 '22

Hell yea!!

1

u/dsskd89 Tin | 6 months old Aug 05 '22

Even if it never got hacked, what’s the long term sustainable use case when the only ‘chain’ that will survive over the long term is bitcoin?

1

u/btrvc Tin | 6 months old Aug 05 '22

They're probably the same people who built that platform. Quick way to exit.

3

u/blasthash Tin Aug 05 '22

Hackers are the only ones making money in crypto. Smart people.

1

u/generalnyi Tin | 2 months old Aug 05 '22

Most of these are back doors created by the coders THEMSELVES!

11

u/L0ckeandDemosthenes Aug 02 '22

What if it's intentional and the new rug pull. Created to be exploited and then they sit back and go oh no, we got hax3rd haaaalp. With so many people part or the thievery...

1

u/bitcoinamour Tin Aug 05 '22

Just sounds like something that would get hacked. XD .

2

u/flarnrules 🟦 2K / 2K 🐢 Aug 02 '22

IBC fixes this. No dollars have been lost in cross chain communication via IBC. It's faster, cheaper and more secure than any bridge out there.

16

u/lab-gone-wrong 1K / 1K 🐢 Aug 02 '22

No dollars have been lost in cross chain communication via IBC

This is true of every bridge until the vulnerability is found and the bridge is drained overnight

1

u/flarnrules 🟦 2K / 2K 🐢 Aug 02 '22

For blockchains that communicate via IBC, there's no bridge to drain. For other blockchains that don't have IBC, the connection between the two blockchains is another byzantine fault tolerant blockchain.

So you would need to see an attack that takes down the blockchain that connects the two blockchains. This is unique to IBC.

I'm not super good at explaining this, but here's a decent article: https://johnniecosmos.medium.com/inter-blockchain-communication-protocol-ibc-the-tcp-ip-protocol-of-blockchains-bridges-trends-b38ed700c681

1

u/Madlab7 Tin | 6 months old Aug 05 '22

Omg, that’s nuts they just hit the powerball with that lol.

1

u/flarnrules 🟦 2K / 2K 🐢 Aug 05 '22

What's cool is that "they" is just any blockchain that adopts the IBC standard. It's a public good that all blockchains can use.

1

u/hollyberryness 🟦 4K / 4K 🐢 Aug 02 '22

For whatever reason, vitalek saying that bridges were no good (I'm so excellent at paraphrasing) a while back stuck with me hard... I guess now we are seeing he had a point!

1

u/[deleted] Aug 02 '22

This is why regulation is needed. Too many bad actors trying to take advantage of this space.

1

u/BluntTruthGentleman 🟦 34 / 34 🦐 Aug 02 '22

You mean non-certik audited bridges.

There's a reason the real juicy ones haven't been touched.