According to Chainalysis analysts, since the beginning of the year, the amount of funds stolen as a result of 13 attacks on cross-chain protocols has reached $2 billion.

Following the Nomad Bridge exploit last night, an estimated $2 billion has been stolen from cross-chain bridges so far in 2022. Read our blog to learn what makes these protocols vulnerable and what the industry can do about it. https://t.co/WLo62H6NFe pic.twitter.com/CZRnqrPikh

— Chainalysis (@chainalysis) August 2, 2022

The share of attacks on bridges accounted for 69% of all funds stolen by attackers in 2022.

The last such episode was the August 2 hack of the Nomad protocol in the Evmos ecosystem.

“As the value transferred via cross-chain protocols increases, so does their appeal to hackers. This poses a serious threat to building trust in blockchain technology.”experts said.

Analysts noted that North Korea-linked groups are also involved. As a result, they managed to take control of $1 billion worth of assets, including attacks on bridges.

The experts emphasized that the design of cross-chain protocols still remains an unresolved technical problem. In their view, it can only be an extremely strict code-control solution. This will allow to build a library of reliable and secure smart contracts that will become templates for other developers over time.

Previously, Chainalysis launched a hotline for victims of cryptocurrency crimes.

Recall that in June, the Horizon cross-chain protocol associated with the Harmony blockchain was hacked. Damage totaled approximately $100 million.

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has previously said he is “pessimistic” about bridges. According to him, the latter is vulnerable to 51% attacks.

Learn more about what cross-chain bridges are in ForkLog tutorials.

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