BSC is working with validators on an upgrade after an attacker purportedly created over $100M in extra BNB.
Binance Smart Chain briefly paused their services due to an exploit on the BSC Token Hub cross-chain bridge that resulted in the creation of extra BNB.
According to Binance CEO CZ, the equivalent of $100 million is the estimated amount affected by the exploit. The coins taken in the hack were not pre-existing BNB from user wallets, but instead BNB created by the attacker through the exploit: BNB Chain has underlined that existing user funds are safe.
According to BNB Chain's official Reddit account, the chain coordinated with validators to temporarily suspend Binance Smart Chain after being alerted to the exploit on BSC Token Hub. BSC Token Hub acts as a bridge between the BNB Beacon Chain (BEP2) and the BNB Chain (BEP20 or BSC).
BNB Chain’s Reddit post read:
"We have asked all validators to temporarily suspend BSC. The issue is contained now. Your funds are safe. We apologize for the inconvenience and will provide further updates accordingly."
BNB Chain’s Twitter account noted that their community of validators had cooperated as a node upgrade was planned. According to the BNB Chain Reddit account, about $7 million has been frozen of the estimated $100 million affected.
BNB Chain tweeted a call for BSC validators to get in touch as they continue to react to the situation.
Shortly before 8am London time, it was confirmed that BSC was back up and running, with BNB Chain adding:
"The validators are confirming their status and the community infrastructure are upgrading as well."
This is not the first time that hackers have targeted cross-chain bridges: an estimated $1 billion has been stolen in bridge exploits since January. At the beginning of the year, the Ronin Network bridge was drained of $625 million in ETH and USDC, about $100 million was taken from the Horizen bridge several months later, and $190 million was stolen from the Nomad Bridge in August.
As of press time, BNB is trading at $285.10, down almost 4% over a 24-hour period but still slightly up by about 0.1% on the week.
In a subsequent blog post, BNB Chain apologized for the exploit — but said a swift community response helped to minimize losses.
"Decentralized chains are not designed to be stopped, but by contacting community validators one by one, we were able to stop the incident from spreading. It was not that easy as BNB Smart Chain has 26 active validators at present and 44 in total in different time zones. This delayed closure, but we were able to minimize the loss."
The story will be updated as it develops.
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