Shibarium Bridge Hit by $2.4 Million Exploit - Security Breach Exposed

Another day, another crypto heist—Shibarium's bridge just got drained for $2.4 million. The exploit highlights the persistent vulnerabilities in cross-chain infrastructure, despite years of promises about 'bulletproof' security.

How the Attack Unfolded

Attackers identified a critical flaw in the bridge's smart contract, allowing them to siphon funds directly from the liquidity pool. The entire process took mere minutes—yet another reminder that in crypto, millions can vanish faster than you can say 'decentralized finance'.

Security Fallout and Community Reaction

The Shiba Inu community erupts as developers scramble to contain the damage. This isn't just about lost funds—it's about shattered trust in a project that's already walking a tightrope between meme status and legitimate utility.

Will this trigger a broader sell-off? Probably not—crypto investors have the memory of a goldfish and the risk tolerance of a degenerate gambler. After all, what's another $2.4 million between friends when the market cap's in the billions?

Hacker Uses Bridge Funds To Seize 4.6M BONE

In an X post on September 13, the development team behind the Shiba Inu (SHIB) token revealed that a hacker leveraged funds from an earlier bridge hack to acquire 4.6 million BONE tokens in a single block, mimicking a flash loan-style transaction. This maneuver temporarily granted the malicious actor significant validator voting power to sign a malicious state on the Shibarium network, where BONE functions as the governance token.

Notably, the flash loan-like transactions were settled using assets transferred directly from the bridge in the form of 224.57 ethereum (ETH) ($1.05 million) and 92.6 billion SHIB ($1.30 million). However, the BONE tokens remain locked with validators due to staking mechanisms, preventing the attacker from withdrawing them immediately.

Nevertheless, the validator compromise highlighted a critical issue for the Ethereum layer 2 solution. The Shiba Inu team notes that evidence suggests that 10 of 12 validators’ signing keys were breached, leaving only K9 Finance and Unification validators resisting the malicious signing attempt.

In addition, other assets, including LEASH ($645,000), ROAR ($284,000), TREAT ($50,000), BAD ($17,000), and SHIFU ($10,000), were also drained but have not been sold. Meanwhile, the hacker’s attempt to offload approximately $700,000 worth of stolen KNINE tokens was thwarted after the K9 Finance DAO multisig blacklisted their address, effectively freezing 248 billion KNINE permanently.

Shibarium Team Shares Security Response And Next Steps

In the immediate aftermath, the Shiba Inu team has halted staking and unstaking functions to safeguard community assets. Meanwhile, stake manager funds were also moved from proxy contracts into a secure 6-of-9 hardware multisig wallet. In addition, Blockchain security teams such as Hexens, Seal911, and PeckShield have also been onboarded to conduct a forensic investigation into the breach.

In other developments, Shiba Inu developer with X username Kaal Dhairya confirmed that while damage control and investigations are underway, the team is open to negotiating with the hacker, offering leniency and even a potential small bounty should the stolen assets be returned.

Following the hack, the Shibarium ecosystem tokens have varying degrees of a negative price reaction. Notably, the Shiba Inu (SHIB) trades at 0.000014 following a slight 1.67% decline in the last day. Meanwhile, LEASH and BONE are down by 5.69% and 21.98% respectively, within the same period.