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08/05/2024

White hat hacker on Ronin returns $10M in ETH after apparent accidental attack

An MEV bot returned nearly all the funds, and the team says $500,000 is being paid to it as a bounty. Source: Cointelegraph An MEV (Maximum Extractable Value) bot drained nearly 3,996 Ether (ETH) from the Ronin network bridge on August 6 and then returned almost all of the funds, according to data from blockchain explorer Etherscan. This suggests the bot may have carried out the front-run attack unintentionally. At the time the ETH was returned, it was worth more than $10 million. The bot returned the

White hat hacker on Ronin returns $10M in ETH after apparent accidental attack

An MEV bot returned nearly all the funds, and the team says $500,000 is being paid to it as a bounty.

Source: Cointelegraph

An MEV (Maximum Extractable Value) bot drained nearly 3,996 Ether (ETH) from the Ronin network bridge on August 6 and then returned almost all of the funds, according to data from blockchain explorer Etherscan. This suggests the bot may have carried out the front-run attack unintentionally. At the time the ETH was returned, it was worth more than $10 million.

The bot returned the funds at 3:04 PM UTC. A total of 3,991 ETH was transferred back to the Ronin team, while the remaining 5 ETH had yet to be returned. The Ronin team announced the refund on social platform X and said the bot's owner would receive a $500,000 bounty for uncovering the vulnerability.

Source: Ronin Network

The team said it would only reopen the bridge after the vulnerability is patched and an audit is completed.

MEV bots are programmed to copy transactions and pay higher gas fees to execute them first when doing so is profitable. As a result, they sometimes accidentally exploit protocols. For example, if a hacker attempts to exploit a protocol but doesn't pay a high enough gas fee, an MEV bot may automatically copy the attack and drain the protocol's funds. In these cases, the bot owner will typically return the funds to the victim, as happened here.

Related: Ronin Network exploited for $9.8M in ETH, white hat hacker suspected

In July, a similar incident occurred when an MEV bot drained more than $8 million from the Rho Markets protocol. The bot owner ultimately returned all the funds.

Ronin was also exploited for over $600 million in March 2022. It is home to Axie Infinity, a Web3 game that claims more than 2.7 million users.