On September 12, the Shibarium bridge suffered a flash loan attack that resulted in the withdrawal of 224.57 ETH and 92.6 billion SHIB, totaling around $2.4 mln. The incident forced the Shiba Inu team to restrict several operations on the network.
PeckShield analysts were among the first who detected suspicious activity.
The attacker borrowed 4.6 mln BONE, Shibarium’s governance token, through a flash loan and gained access to 10 out of 12 validator keys, securing control over two-thirds of the network. Using this advantage, they transferred assets from the Shibarium bridge contract to their own address.
In addition to ETH and SHIB, the hacker obtained about $700.000 in K9 (KNINE) tokens linked to K9 Finance. However, when attempting to sell KNINE, the K9 Finance DAO community blacklisted the attacker’s address, making the assets illiquid.
Developer’s Response
The Shiba Inu developers suspended staking and unstaking functions on Shibarium to freeze the borrowed BONE, which were already subject to a withdrawal delay. This move prevented the attacker from exploiting most of the network.
One of the leading developers in the ecosystem, Kaal Dhairya, described the attack as sophisticated and suggested it may have been planned for months. He stated that the project team has contacted law enforcement but is also open to offering the hacker a reward if the funds are returned.
Companies Hexens, Seal 911, and PeckShield have joined the investigation of the incident.
Market Reaction
Following the attack, the price of BONE surged sharply from $0.165 to $0.294 within an hour before correcting. According to CoinMarketCap, at the time of writing, it trades at around $0.19. SHIB fell 2,6% in the past 24 hours, dropping to $0.000013.
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