Hyperbridge Exploit Losses Jump to $2.5M After Deeper Investigation

[bonk]

Hyperbridge has revised the losses from its April 13 exploit to around $2.5 million, nearly 10x higher than the initial $237,000 estimate. The updated figure includes not only the direct exploit but also losses from incentive pools and activity across multiple chains.

The attack turned out to be more complex than first reported. It involved two phases: first, the attacker drained around 245 ETH, and shortly after minted nearly 1 billion bridged DOT tokens, which were then dumped across decentralized exchanges. The vulnerability was traced to flaws in the Merkle Mountain Range proof verification logic, impacting networks like Ethereum, Arbitrum, and BNB Chain.

The incident shows how initial loss estimates in DeFi hacks can underestimate the full damage. As cross-chain systems grow more complex, tracking and assessing exploit impact becomes significantly harder.

[chainsniff]

security in crypto: fix one layer, discover three new problems underneath