Ronin network recovers funds following white-hat hack

The Ronin network team alerted the public on Tuesday of a pause to its bridge resulting from an upgrade breach. The team identified the breach as a white-hat hack that extracted $12 million in ETH and USDC from its platform. While the funds are being returned, RON has risen by 3% following the announcement.

Ronin network experiences white-hat hack following bridge upgrade

Ronin, the network behind the decentralized play-to-earn game Axie Infinity, has paused its bridge operations today due to a suspicious breach, which resulted in $12 million in ETH and USDC being removed from the platform.

The network's team announced that it received a notification from certain white-hats concerning a break-in on its bridge. The bridge was closed 40 minutes after spotting the lapse.

"The Ronin Network bridge has been paused while we investigate a report from white hats about a potential MEV exploit," said Axie Infinity and Ronin network co-founder Aleksander Larsen

The breach follows vulnerabilities spotted by white-hat hackers on Ronin after an upgrade that led the bridge to misinterpret certain operations.

The white-hat hackers withdrew 4,000 ETH and 2 million USDC, worth about $12 million, from the bridge, the highest withdrawal amount that can be made in a single transaction. 

"The bridge limit serves as a critical safeguard to increase the security of large fund withdrawals, and it effectively prevented further damage in this exploit," the team said.

This incident reignited concerns about the Ronin network's security following a previous exploit in 2022 that resulted in a $600 million loss. Several crypto community members criticized Ronin, citing perceived inadequacies in the network's security measures.

Despite the setback, RON, the native token of the Ronin network, has risen by 3.1% since the announcement. This could be attributed to investors' optimism about the security and integrity of their funds following confirmation that the attack was from white-hat hackers.

Furthermore, the team has reaffirmed a safe resolution of the exploit and has already recovered $10 million worth of ETH from the hackers; the rest of the money is being returned as well.