During the month of March 2022, one of Axie Infinity’s former employees became the victim of a fake job offer on LinkedIn and applied for the role. This caused the Ronin Bridge to be hacked for $540 million, resulting in the loss of the company.
It was discovered that a senior engineer in the company had been conned into applying for a job with an organization that did not exist. In other words, a false PDF document disguised as a job offer document was downloaded by the individual.
There was a subsequent act of malware deployment via the offer document, which was used to deploy the malware. Ultimately, Ronin’s network was breached with the help of this document, allowing one of the biggest hacks in the crypto sector to ever occur.
Timeline
In the absence of a proper tracking system, the security researchers were unable to detect the breach immediately, which resulted in no immediate action being taken. In order to understand the large outflows from the bridge, experts used these kinds of systems.
Forging fake withdrawals was possible with the help of five of the nine validator private keys that the attacker was able to access. And here below we have mentioned the validator private keys:-
- 4 Sky Mavis validators
- 1 Axie DAO
The Ronin bridge was drained of 173,600 Ethereum and 25.5M USDC in two transactions as a result of this security breach event.
Security measures
Here below we have mentioned all the security measures taken by the company after this security breach:-
- To ensure that lingering threats do not present themselves, our security experts are continuously working with other top-notch experts.
- In Ronin Network, we intend to increase the number of nodes that serve as Validating Nodes.
- Implementation of stricter internal procedures must be implemented
- Audits should be conducted by security professionals.
- Create an organization with a zero-trust culture.
- Programs that offer Bug Bounty prizes should be launched.
- ISO27001 and other security-related certifications.
There has been an announcement from the FBI that the Ronin Validator Hack was the result of highly skilled hackers from North Korea, the Lazarus Group.
The Lazarus Group is a group of state-sponsored hackers who have been linked with many high-profile hacks and are highly resourceful and sophisticated cybercriminals.
A new design is currently being developed for the Ronin Network bridge. The bridge will be open to the public once it will be able to withstand the test of time.
It is imperative to note that this security breach demonstrates the fact that there are no companies that are immune from external threats.
