Wormhole Network's Cross-Chain Bridge Exploited for Over $320 Million in Ethereum

Reports indicate that the Wormhole Network’s ethereum ↔ solana bi-directional bridge has been exploited by an attacker for *120,000 ether or more than $320 million using today’s ethereum exchange rates. The developers behind the Wormhole Network have told the public the network is “down for maintenance,” as the team “looks into a potential exploit.”

*Editor’s Note: This post and headline has been updated to reflect new information provided by the Wormhole team that says the bridge was exploited for 120,000 WETH.

Wormhole Network’s Ethereum ↔ Solana Bridge Exploited, 120,000 Ethereum Siphoned

• According to various reports and a few onchain transactions the Wormhole Network’s crosschain ethereum ↔ solana bridge has been exploited for *$320 million in ether or *120,000 ETH.
• While the team has not published a post mortem, the Wormhole Network developers published a tweet that said the network was down for the time being.
• “The wormhole network is down for maintenance as we look into a potential exploit,” the tweet said. “We will provide updates here as soon as we have them. Thank you for your patience.”
• Other accounts of the situation noted that the attacker was exploiting Solana (SOL) too in addition to the stolen ether. “Okay this is too interesting to stay away. Looks like the wormhole exploiter is wreaking havoc on the Solana side too,” the Twitter account dubbed Robot Dad said on Wednesday.
• When someone remarked on social media that the Wormhole Network used the term “potential,” others shared an onchain message that was sent to the attacker from the Wormhole Deployer.
• The message states: “This is the Wormhole Deployer. We noticed you were able to exploit the Solana VAA verification and mint tokens. We d like to offer you a whitehat agreement, and present you a bug bounty of $10 million for exploit details, and returning the WETH you’ve minted.”