Synapse Bridge cross-chain protocol prevented an $8 million hack

Developers of the Synapse Bridge cross-chain protocol thwarted a hacker from draining about $8 million from the метапула Avalanche Neutral Dollar (nUSD). The incident, which the team disclosed in Discord chat, occurred on November 7.

The network was paused earlier today after a malicious actor tried to exploit an AMM contract vulnerability. Swift action ensured no LP funds were lost, and the bridge is now fully back online.

Additional details in Discord: https://t.co/oJF8vCKPPk

Full post-mortem will follow

— Synapse Protocol (@SynapseProtocol) November 7, 2021

Synapse — a cross-chain bridge for moving tokens between several Layer 1 and Layer 2 protocols using an AMM.

According to the developers, the attacker attempted to exploit the vulnerability via the bridge to transfer assets from Polygon (MATIC) to Avalanche (AVAX). The team managed to identify a bug in Saddle metapool’s AMM contracts.

“Validators agreed to switch to autonomous mode to pause the network,” the team added.

The transaction worth roughly $8 million was rejected. The funds will be returned to affected liquidity providers after the full audit is completed.

Earlier in Q3 2021, blockchain-industry hackers stole cryptocurrencies worth more than $1.1 billion. The Ethereum ecosystem suffered the most — during the period it lost more than $800 million in 20 attacks.

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