White Hat Hackers Return $9 Million to Nomad After $190 Million Exploit Wrecks Cross-Chain Bridge

Nomad also announced a bounty of up to 10 percent for the return of the stolen funds from the Nomad bridge.

By Shomik Sen Bhattacharjee | Updated: 5 August 2022 20:06 IST

Highlights

The exploit occurred due to a flaw in the smart contract
Nomad is offering hackers up to 10 percent on any funds returned
Nomad has so far recouped more than $20 million of the haul

White Hat Hackers Return $9 Million to Nomad After $190 Million Exploit Wrecks Cross-Chain Bridge

PeckShield said the amount returned equates to around 4.75 percent of the total loss

Photo Credit: Nomad

Ethical hackers aka white hat hackers that safeguarded the funds on behalf of cross-chain token bridge Nomad during the attack on the crypt have begun returning the funds to a wallet address belonging to the company according to a report by blockchain security firm PeckShield. Thus far, about $9 million (roughly Rs. 71 crore) has been returned, amounting to around 4.75 percent of the total loss. Following an attack on Nomad that saw more than $190 million (roughly Rs. 1,505 crore) in funds stolen, the company published a wallet address on Wednesday for the recovery of the tokens.

Data from Etherscan reveals that tokens returned so far include $3.75 million in USD coins, $2 million (roughly Rs. 15.8 crore) in Tether, $1.4 million (roughly Rs. 11 crore) in Covalent Query tokens, and $1.2 million (roughly Rs. 9.5 crore) in Frax.

#PeckShieldAlert @nomadxyz_ cross-chain bridge has suffered a $190 million exploit yesterday, ~50% of stolen funds still sit in these 3 main addresses.
0x56D8...Aac4e3
0xB5C5...93590E
0xBF29...827179https://t.co/KRJRkkO8wM
— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) August 3, 2022

The majority of the funds have come from known Ethereum Name Service domain wallet addresses, and these individuals are among the 300 wallets that took part in the hack. However, unlike the hackers, ethical hackers took swift action to ensure the safety of Nomad's funds during the incident after the protocol requested that they return funds in a Tweet following the attack.

The security firm has estimated that three prime addresses still house about 50 percent of the stolen crypto. And 10 percent of these hackers, with around $6 million (roughly Rs. 47.5 crore) in stolen funds, have ENS domain addresses. That said, the Nomad team has reaffirmed that they are actively collaborating with law enforcement and a top chain analysis company, TRM Labs, to find the funds.

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After managing to recoup more than $20 million (roughly Rs. 158 crore) of the haul so far, Nomad said it's offering hackers a bounty of up to 10 percent to retrieve user funds.

“The bounty is for those who come forward now, and for those who have already returned funds,” Nomad said.

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Nomad said it won't take legal action against any hackers who return 90 percent of the assets they took, as it will consider these individuals to be “white hat” hackers.

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