THORChain (RUNE), a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, has undergone a third attack in a month, losing $8 million. According to a statement from the protocol developers, the whitehat deployed his own contract through which he could force the Bifrost protocol used by THORChain to accept fake assets, and brought them into real ones.
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This is third time in a month THORChain is facing an attack. Last week, the project also lost 4,000 Ether (~$7.7 million) due to another attack. The weak point of their protocol, designed for the exchange of assets in various blockchains, is recognized by the developers as its complexity. THORChain is currently in testing mode based on the Chaosnet network.
It easy to pile on the project currently.
— THORChain (@THORChain) July 23, 2021
There were really only two options. Launch and accept the risk of issues, or not launch and stay in the 90% complete audit-review cycle for another 6 months.
Both are difficult.
The whitehat left a message in transaction's input data saying that he could have taken other assets with the help of the exploit, significantly increasing the damage. However, he wanted to teach the developers a lesson. He also noted that a 10% reward on assets at risk could have prevented these events. The THORChain protocol lost over $20 million in cryptocurrencies as a result of a series of attack so far. As of press time, RUNE is down by 14% and is trading at $3.93.
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