After a $100 million breach occurred last week, BNB Chain implements a hard fork to safeguard the network.
BNB Chain has completed the Moran hard fork update in an effort to restore and safeguard infrastructure following a massive breach last week.
The hard fork — a blockchain update that makes a significant change to the network’s core software — was completed successfully at 4 a.m. ET on Wednesday at a block height of 22,107,423. It was primarily carried out to apply a software patch that addressed a serious vulnerability exploited by an unknown attacker last Friday to steal more than $100 million from BNB Chain’s cross-chain bridge.
On Tuesday, the development team announced the update through GitHub, stating it will perform a hard fork to apply a fix and re-enable the network’s “cross-chain architecture.”
Users can utilize this cross-chain bridge to move assets between the two blockchains that comprise the BNB Chain network: Beacon Chain and Smart Chain. While the BNB Beacon Chain manages network governance and staking, the Smart Chain is utilized to build apps using an Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible smart contract platform. With the use of the Token Hub bridge, each of these chains may link to other third-party chains.
The BNB chain hack
During the hack, the perpetrator faked security proofs by exploiting a vulnerability related to the bridge’s “iavl hash check.” The hacker was able to create 2 million BNB tokens out of thin air, valued around $560 million at the moment. According to on-chain statistics, the hacker moved more than $100 million to third-party chains like as Ethereum, Fantom, Polygon, Avalanche, and Arbitrum. The vast bulk of the damaged assets (almost $430 million) were still in the hacker’s wallet on the BNB Chain.
In reaction to the vulnerability, the team shut down the blockchain, instructing all 44 validators, including 26 active validators, to cease activities.
The network was eventually re-enabled, but the bridge remained closed until the vulnerability was patched. The pause was also an attempt to halt the attacker and retrieve any exploited cash that had not yet been transferred to other chains.
Today’s hard fork will assist BNB Chain in resuming full bridge operations and securing the network’s overall architecture. According to a recent post from the team, with this hard fork, the team is anticipated to move on to its next plan of action, which is to hold governance votes to decide whether to freeze cash stored in the hacker’s address on BNB Chain and “auto-burn” them.
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