NEAR Intents faces a $3.8 million loss due to a security breach, pausing services and restricting transactions across multiple chains.
NEAR Intents, a platform specializing in cross-chain trading, has disclosed a significant security breach that has resulted in losses estimated at $3.8 million. In response to the incident, the platform has paused all services and imposed restrictions on deposits and withdrawals across various blockchains.
The breach was attributed to a vulnerability found in the interaction between the service's Omni deposit and withdrawal mechanism and its smart contracts. NEAR Intents has addressed the issue and pledged to fully reimburse affected users.
The platform seeks to enhance cross-chain trading efficiency by enabling users to specify swap preferences while utilizing independent market makers, known as solvers, to execute trades. NEAR Intents claims to have processed over $30 billion in trading volume across 35 blockchains.
As of the report, the native token, NEAR, was trading at around $4.85, down about 6% in the past day. It's crucial to note that the breach was linked to the platform's cross-chain operations, not the NEAR Protocol blockchain itself.
This incident is part of a worrying trend in the crypto industry, which has faced several major security breaches this year. Recently, Bitget exchange suffered a hack resulting in over $350 million in losses, alongside other significant incidents involving the Liquid Network and Drift, according to data from DefiLlama.
NEAR Intents has notified law enforcement and is working with security firms to trace the stolen assets. Blockchain investigator ZachXBT revealed that the exploitation started with suspicious withdrawals from a hot wallet on the BNB Chain, with the stolen funds later moved to the KuCoin exchange and converted to Bitcoin.
While NEAR Intents aims to quickly resume its core services, it has noted that deposits and withdrawals on multiple networks will remain unavailable for a longer period to allow for necessary updates. A status update indicated ongoing issues with networks such as BNB Smart Chain, Polygon, and Avalanche, among others.
