- Horizon bridge was hacked a ramson of $100M worth of crypto assets
- The hack has been linked to the Lazurus group from North Korea
- Harmony offers $10M as a reward to reverse the stolen assets
The Harmony Horizon Bridge attack has been connected to a group of hackers from North Korea.
The hackers, the Lazurus group, are the prime suspects of the attack that happened on 24th June 2022, on the Horizon Bridge. Where a total amount of $100 million of digital assets evaporated without any trace.
It is reported that the manner in which the bridge was hacked is the same way the Lazarus group performed its attacks on various DeFi and exchange platforms.
Tracing the stolen assets
Earlier this year, there were concerns raised concerning the security of the Horizon Bridge. The bridge which operates on Harmony, Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain confirmed that it was safe after confirming that it was audited.
A few months down the line the Horizon Bridge hack happens. As reported the hacker transferred a total of 40% of the total $100 million stolen into a Tornado mixer. This was in an attempt to conceal the information of any transactions the hacker could initiate.
However, a Tornado demixing capability was later used to trace the stolen assets. The tracing revealed on 27th June 2022, the hacker had transferred ETH worth $39 million (35,000 ETH) into the Tornado cash mixer.
During the hack, different assets were stolen including the BNB, USDT, USDC, Dai, and the transferred ETH.
Harmony offers rewards to restore funds
In its effort to find the hacker and restore the stolen assets, the Harmony team had at first offered a $1,000,000 bounty to act as an incentive so that the hackers can reverse the stolen funds.
Though these efforts seemed futile, the Harmony group proposed another $10,000,00 bounty and assured the hackers that investigations are going to be put to an end. The Harmony team also promised to drop any further criminal charges concerning the hack.
The Lazarus group is also named on the Ronin Bridge of Axie Infinity hack. Where assets worth $600 million were stolen.
Other token Bridges that have been hacked include Meter and Wormhole. All these hacks accumulate to approximately a total of $1 billion.
