Crypto Bridges Hit for $31.6M as Hackers Exploit Weaknesses

A series of two crypto bridge breaches in just seven hours led to hackers draining $31.6 million from affected wallets.

The incidents, reported by on-chain analytics firm Blockaid, occurred on Wednesday and involved a decentralized perpetual exchange called AFX and the Verus Ethereum Bridge.

The first breach targeted an AFX-operated bridge on Arbitrum, resulting in losses of $24.15 million. Blockaid said that this incident was not tied to a specific vulnerability in Arbitrum's core bridging infrastructure but rather a problem with third-party integration or bridge controls.

A second attack, which occurred just hours later, targeted the Verus Ethereum Bridge and resulted in approximately $7.5 million being drained from bridge reserves.

The method used by attackers in the Verus incident appears to be similar to one reported in May, where hackers stole $11.58 million using a 'bridge import path' to trigger unbacked Ethereum-side payouts.