Table of Contents
Horizon Bridge, a platform for cross-chain interoperability between the Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain (BSC), and Harmony blockchain networks, had $100 million stolen last week in what is known as the Horizon Bridge Hack.
A third of that amount was transferred to an address owned by cryptocurrency mixing service Tornado Cash.
The Horizon Bridge Hack
A request for confirmation of the transfer’s details was not immediately returned by Peckshield, a blockchain security company. The Horizon Bridge platform was breached last week, resulting in the theft of over $98 million in various tokens, which were then converted to ETH.
According to an updated blog post published on Sunday by Harmony, the bridge steward, it is aware that Tornado Cash is being used by the hacker to move funds and is looking into various options for users and partners.
A post on Harmony’s website reads, “Transparency is important in blockchain and we aim to be transparent with our community, but we ask the community to remain patient during this investigation and confidentiality at this time.”
Tornado Cash
Tornado Cash is an example of a mixer or tumbler, a service that allows users to hide the history of their cryptocurrency transactions by pooling and mixing their own funds with those of other users.
Despite Harmony’s $1 million bounty for the return of the funds, the call has gone unanswered and no criminal charges have been brought.
The Ultimate Deal
“The desire to work with the hacker remains, but we will continue the full investigation until resolution or the funds are returned,” Harmony declared on Monday.
Despite the hack last week, Harmony’s incident response team has been unable to find any evidence that the company’s smart contract codes or the Horizon platform have been compromised.
The Lazarus Group
Elliptic Enterprises, which tracks stolen digital assets, told Bloomberg the Lazarus Group likely carried out the exploit
(a cybercrime entity backed by the North Korean state).
According to a recent study by Coincub, North Korea is by far the country with the most crypto crimes. Over the years, skilled hackers from the totalitarian country have stolen digital assets worth more than $1.5 billion from governments and private companies all over the world.
Do you have any thoughts on this article? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
I’m sure you’ll find this article interesting as well.