On October 7, the BNB Chain suffered a major hack: the hacker exploited a breach in the code of the BSC Token Hub to obtain 2 million BNB tokens. To remove this technical flaw, a hard fork of the blockchain was executed.
Back to the key points of the BNB Chain hack
Last week, the BNB Chain, one of the most important blockchains in terms of valuationsuffered a massive hack.
A hacker had seized $560 million in the form of BNB, the native cryptocurrency of the Binance blockchain. Despite everything, by quickly blocking the production of the blocks, the teams managed to freeze almost 80% of the stolen funds.
To succeed, the hacker exploited a flaw in the code of the BSC Token Hubthe bridge linking the BNB Smart Chain and the BNB Beacon Chain.
Bridges are protocols allowing the interaction between several blockchains. These “bridges” are regularly exploited by hackers, because their code is generally more vulnerable to security vulnerabilities.
In order not to cut the BNB Chain network for several days, the teams chose to freeze the bridge to isolate the flaw. Consequently, transactions on the blockchain could be carried out without jeopardizing users’ cryptocurrencies.
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What is this hard fork for?
On October 12 at block 22,107,423, BNB Chain teams performed a hard fork on the blockchain. Named Moran, its objective is to allow the redeployment of the bridge between the two Binance blockchains.
As a reminder, a hard fork is the branching of a blockchain caused by a non-backwards compatible modification of its protocol.
Here is precisely what the Moran hard fork changes to the BNB Chain mainnet:
- Fixed the vulnerability used by the hacker;
- Introduction of a header for each block in order to carry out checks in the CrossChain contract;
- Creation of a whitelist of relay nodes to better control the candidates.
For blockchain users, no manipulation is to be carried out : only the few nodes of the BNB Chain need to update their computer program.
This hack and its consequences is a reminder of the dangers associated with decentralized finance. Consequently, the best way to protect yourself is to store your cryptocurrencies yourself, through a cold wallet.
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Always enthusiastic about new technologies, I gradually moved closer to activities related to Web3 during the year 2021. Over time, I wanted to add my stone to the building. It was then that I became an editor, with the aim of explaining cryptocurrency-related topics to as many people as possible.
Timothy Bourbotte
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