NEAR pulls the drawbridge up on potential exploit
NEAR Protocol has prevented an attempt by bad actors to exploit Rainbow Bridge, a user platform to transfer tokens between NEAR, Aurora, and Ethereum. Aurora CEO Alex Shevchenko alerted the community via Twitter, stating that they paused the bridge while the team looked into the attack. The attack failed, no funds were lost, and the attempt cost the hacker 2.5 ETH, or over $7,000.
Summary
Rainbow Bridge is a cross-chain bridge that lets users transfer assets between the Ethereum, NEAR, and Aurora networks. It was built by Aurora Labs and is known for its user experience. Interestingly, in this case, Shevchenko says that additional measures will be taken to ensure that the cost of an attack would increase.
What happened?
The attempt began on May 1 with the attacker deploying a contract meant to deposit some funds to become a Rainbow Bridge relayer. The premise of the attack was to send made-up light client…
