More than $321M Worth of wETH Stolen From Wormhole Bridge by Hacker

Wormhole, the Solana to Ethereum bridge was exploited on Wednesday, February 2. An anonymous hacker has managed to move out a fat paycheck of approximately $321 a million. 

A vulnerability in the Ethereum-compatible cross-chain bridge allowed a hacker to drain 120,000 ETH locked on the Ethereum-facing smart contract at around 18:24 UTC last night.

WHAT IS the WORMHOLE?

The wormhole is one of the largest bridges between Solana and other blockchains, aiming to facilitate seamless transfer of crypto assets across chains with just one integration.

The Wormhole Bridge allow users to transfer ETH from Ethereum to Solana. To use ETH on Solana, users can lock it in a smart contract and receive a pegged asset called Wormhole ETH (wETH). This asset can be used across Solana's DeFi ecosystem.

Wormhole confirmed the hacking on February 2 via Twitter Feed that 120,000 wrapped Ethereum (wETH) was 'exploited. ' The network was taken offline to strengthen its security and promised to be back shortly which it already back as at the time of writing this line. 

The wormhole network was exploited for 120k wETH.

ETH will be added over the next hours to ensure wETH is backed 1:1. More details to come shortly.

We are working to get the network back up quickly. Thanks for your patience.

— Wormhole🌪 (@wormholecrypto) February 2, 2022

Wormhole said it would replace the missing ETH on the bridge to "ensure wETH is backed 1:1". However, did not specify where it would get the $322 million supply from. The Wormhole team has since patched the vulnerability. 

The $320 million worth wETH Stolen all have been restored.

According to the Wormhole Twitter handle, which later tweeted on February 3 confirmed the stolen funds have been restored as the company promised. 

1/2

All funds have been restored and Wormhole is back up.

We're deeply grateful for your support and thank you for your patience.

— Wormhole🌪 (@wormholecrypto) February 3, 2022

 "The team is working on a details incident report and will share it asap." Said the Wormhole official account.

Following the hacking news on Wormhole bridge, SOL has dipped more than 13.5% in the last 25 hours amid uncertainty about the backing of wETH on the bridge. 

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