Only a few hours before the new year started, cybercriminals exploited Orbit Bridge, a bridging service of the cross-chain protocol Orbit Chain, resulting in the theft of about $82 million worth of cryptocurrencies. Orbit Chain officially confirmed the attack today (Monday) but did not furnish any details of the loss.

Orbit Bridge Breached

According to the official confirmation, the attackers exploited the protocol on “Dec-31-2023 08:52:47 PM +UTC.” The developers are now analyzing “the root cause of this issue” and “actively engaging with international law enforcement agencies.”

Currently, a comprehensive analysis identifying
the root cause of this issue is being carrried out with
with Theori.

We are actively engaging with international law enforcement agencies.

— Orbit Chain (@Orbit_Chain) January 1, 2024

Orbit Chain was launched in South Korea in 2018 and enables cross-chain transfers between different decentralized protocols. The protocol has strong links to the Klaytn network, a modular layer-1 blockchain, and is used to transfer assets between EVM-compatible networks and Klaytn.

Blockchain Analysts Reveal Details

The potential exploit of the protocol was first pointed out by pseudonymous X (formerly Twitter) user Kgjr following a series of large outflows from the Orbit Chain Bridge protocol. Multiple other blockchain analysts on Twitter also revealed similar analysis.

Looks like orbit bridge is getting drained right now, different fresh wallets for wbtc usdt usdc and dai, test tx's showup on orbit bridge scanner but bigger ones doesnt. Wallets bellow pic.twitter.com/zlUbT0HrO2

— Kgjr (clueless333) (@KGJRTG) December 31, 2023

Arkham Intelligence, a blockchain analysis platform, pointed out that a total of $81.68 million in cryptocurrencies were siphoned from the protocol in five separate transactions. The largest transaction made by the attackers was $30 million in Tether, while the others are $10 million in USD Coin, 9,500 Ether worth over $21.6 million, 231 Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) worth about $9.8 million, and the rest $10 million in the algorithmic stablecoin DAI. The cryptocurrencies were siphoned to fresh wallet addresses.

Attacks on crypto platforms are common. Despite the constant efforts of the developers, hackers find ways to exploit the crypto platforms. According to a recent report, crypto users lost nearly $2 billion to scams, rug pulls, and hacks in 2023. Notably, this figure became even more substantial when factoring in the $40 billion lost to the collapses of the stablecoin issuer Terraform Labs, the crypto lender Celsius, and the FTX exchange.