THORChain Mainnet Halted Amid Potential Vulnerability Concerns

The operators behind the decentralized cross-chain liquidity protocol – THORChain – preemptively paused the network after claims of potential vulnerability made rounds on social media.

• According to the announcement, the vulnerability in question is speculated to be associated with THORChain dependency that may affect the overall network.
• “Out of an abundance of caution,” THORChain decided to pause trading while carrying out an investigation.
• Its tweet further added:

“The validity of the claim is currently being assessed and verified.”

• Initial reports suggested that THORChain’s liquidity platform – Nine Realms – along with the security team THORSec, received “credible reports” of the vulnerability.
• In wake of the development, THORChain’s native token, RUNE, dropped by nearly 5% and was trading at $1.32.
• Last October, the THORChain network suffered a 20-hour-long outage as a result of a software bug.
• The team had revealed that the issue was string manipulation.
• The DeFi protocol suffered several hacks since its inception in 2018. The latest security breach took place in July, wherein the perpetrators drained around $8 million worth of Ether after attacking the ETH Router.
• While the team assured that the treasury had the necessary funds to compensate all victims, it later notified the community that the attackers limited their damage, “seemingly a whitehat,” and reportedly requested a 10% bounty.