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Aurora Labs CEO Alex Shevchenko revealed on Monday that the NEAR-ETH Rainbow bridge was the target of a hacking attempt over the weekend.
However, protocols put in place successfully defended the bridge against the hacker while user funds remained secure.
A Foiled Attack
The Aurora Labs CEO revealed that the hacker targeting the NEAR-ETH Rainbow Bridge was the one who lost funds, as user funds remained secure. According to Shevchenko, the attack was mitigated within 31 seconds with various mechanisms to safeguard user funds on the bridge. The weekend scenario also highlighted the effective defense mechanisms to safeguard funds on the bridge.
The successful repulse of the attack, plus the added cost to the hacker, comes against the backdrop of hackers plundering nearly $2 billion from the larger DeFi ecosystem in the first 6 months of 2022, according to data sourced from Chainalysis. The Aurora Labs also posted a thread on Twitter regarding the attack.
“Thread on the Rainbow Bridge attack during the weekend TL; DR: similar to May attack; no user funds lost; attack was mitigated automatically within 31 seconds; attacker lost 5 ETH.”
Aurora Watchdogs Fend Off Attack
Shevchenko highlighted the role of the Aurora “Watchdogs” in repelling the attack on the Rainbow Bridge. The Rainbow Bridge allows users to seamlessly transfer tokens ETH, NEAR, and other ERC-20 tokens between networks and was created by Aurora, the Ethereum-compatible scaling solution.
However, the Rainbow Bridge is based on trustless assumptions, which means there are no middlemen to transfer the assets or any related data between chains. Because of this, any user is able to interact with the protocol’s smart contracts, even those with malicious intentions. However, Shevchenko stated that any user with malicious intent could not submit any incorrect information.
This is because they require a consensus of NEAR validators. This mechanism protects against any loss of funds on the Rainbow Bridge. The CEO stated in a blog post,
“If someone tries to submit incorrect information, then it would be challenged by independent watchdogs, who also observe NEAR blockchain.”
Details Of The Attempted Hack
The hacker in question submitted a “fabricated NEAR block” to the Rainbow Bridge while also requiring to deposit 5 ETH as a “safe deposit.” The transaction was submitted on the Ethereum blockchain on 2the 20th of August at 04:49:19 PM UTC. According to Shevchenko, the hacker was hoping that it would be complicated to react to the attack early on Saturday morning. However, automated watchdogs took just 31 seconds to challenge the transaction, which led to the hacker losing their 5 ETH deposit.
The Aurora CEO did have a message for the would-be attacker, inviting them to the bug bounty instead of stealing funds, stating,
“It’s great to see the activity from your end, but if you actually want to make something good, instead of stealing users’ money and having lots of hard time trying to launder it; you have an alternative — the bug bounty:”
Not The First Attempt
This is not the first attempt at compromising the Rainbow Bridge. On the 1st of May, the platform successfully defended an attempt to siphon funds from the bridge. The Aurora CEO stated that while the Bridge is designed to fend off attacks such as these, the protocol had also discarded plans to increase the safe deposit and boost security since that would make the platform less decentralized. As a result, Aurora paid a $6 million bounty to ethical hackers, enlisting their help to secure funds.
