Celer Network Experiences Potential DNS Hijacking – Shuts Down Bridge

Celer Network experiences potential DNS hijacking and has requested that its users remove authorization for various contracts after shutting down its cBridge.

According to the project’s preliminary research, there was some suspicious DNS activity on August 17 at about 7 p.m. (UTC). However, at the time of writing, the platform is still investigating and learning more about the issue.

Celer Network Experiences Potential DNS Hijacking

Meanwhile, as the platform continues to investigate the issue, the team has temporarily disabled the cBridge in order to avoid such catastrophes and safeguard its users. The company also alerted its customers and recommended they cancel token approvals for smart contracts in Ethereum (ETH), Polygon (MATIC), Avalanche (AVAX), Binance Smart Chain, Arbitrum, Astar, and Aurora.

📢📢📢If you recently used cBridge, please make sure to check and revoke any token approval for the following contracts:
Ethereum: 0x2A2aA50450811Ae589847D670cB913dF763318E8
BSC: 0x5895da888Cbf3656D8f51E5Df9FD26E8E131e7CF
(cont' in next thread) https://t.co/HJbCxq4RqN

— CelerNetwork (@CelerNetwork) August 17, 2022

Users can go to the token approval page for each network to cancel the approvals as a preventative measure until the platform investigates the problem and finds a solution.

Criticism

Cross-chain bridges were criticized by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin in January due to basic security flaws. Buterin believes that while the future will be multi-chain, it may not be cross-chain.

Meanwhile, bridge vulnerabilities have grown increasingly common in the cryptocurrency field, amounting in a $2 billion loss in 2022 alone. According to a survey by blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, cross-chain bridge attacks accounted for around 69% of all crypto lost to theft this year, with Q1 topping the way due to the Ronin Bridge hack in March.

Despite the hacks, there are still nice people in the crypto world. Earlier this month, the crypto exchange Binance recovered the vast majority of assets lost as a result of the recent Curve Finance attack. Aside from that, white hat hackers have restored around $32 million in digital assets to the victims of the Nomad bridge breach.

Celer Network Overview

The Celer Network is developing off-chain payment alternatives and generic smart contracts. Its goal is to scale throughput to billions of transactions per second as additional nodes are added to the network. The CELR coin was issued using Binance’s launchpad, which raised $4 million.

Proof-of-Liquidity Commitment (PoLC), a type of virtual mining that rewards users with CELR for locking idle liquidity (such as CELR or other cryptocurrencies) to an off-chain platform for a set amount of time, enables Celer’s state channels. These off-chain service providers can also seek liquidity through crowd lending, in which users can lend CELR to these providers in exchange for interest.

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