Blockchain Protocol Thorchain Suffers $8M Hack

Thorchain told CoinDesk a hacker deployed a custom contract that was able to trick its Bifrost Protocol into receiving a deposit of fake assets.

By Sebastian Sinclair

Jul 23, 2021 at 1:11 a.m. UTC

Updated Sep 14, 2021 at 1:29 p.m. UTC

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Thorchain has been hit by another exploit, this time costing around $8 million, Thorchain confirmed to CoinDesk on Thursday.

Thorchain also told CoinDesk a hacker deployed a custom contract that was able to trick its Bifrost Protocol into receiving a deposit of fake assets.
The network then processed a refund of real assets to the hacker.
Last week, the protocol was drained of around 4,000 ether in a separate breach.

Following last week's hack, Thorchain said it had been audited by multiple blockchain security companies to locate bugs in a given network.

"There were really only two options. Launch and accept the risk of issues, or not launch and stay in the 90% complete audit-review cycle for another six months. Both are difficult," Thorchain said.
"There's a constant battle for these smart contract securities firms to keep up with hackers," Daniel Kim, head of capital markets at Maple Finance, told CoinDesk via Telegram. That said, the DeFi (decentralized finance) industry is still nascent ... these issues lead to solutions."

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