Coreum Bridge Hack Drains Nearly 200,000 XRP, Price Falls Below $1

On August 9, the Coreum cross-chain bridge experienced a significant security breach, leading to the draining of nearly 200,000 XRP tokens in just 97 minutes. The exploit was attributed to a flaw in the bridge's relayer software, not a weakness in the XRP Ledger itself.

The attacker managed to execute 94 transactions, transferring a total of 199,916.3 XRP to newly created wallets. This incident caused the XRP price to fall below $1, marking a notable decline in the token's value.

Details of the Exploit

The Coreum bridge allows users to lock XRP on the XRP Ledger and receive an equivalent bridged version on the Coreum blockchain. However, the bridge's relayer system, which is designed to authorize transactions, failed to verify the legitimacy of deposit actions. This oversight allowed the attacker to submit fake deposits that were mistakenly accepted as valid, triggering real XRP withdrawals.

Despite the rapid execution of the exploit, the XRP Ledger remained secure, with no private keys compromised. The incident highlighted a critical flaw in the bridge's design, where reliance on relayer verification instead of on-chain cryptographic proofs led to the breach.

Current Status

As of August 11, the Coreum bridge has been suspended pending repairs. The Coreum Development Foundation has yet to release an official report detailing the incident, leaving the community to analyze the situation based on on-chain data.

Coreum Bridge Hack Update

On August 9, a flaw in the deposit verification logic of Coreum’s XRPL bridge allowed an attacker to drain 199,916.3 XRP in just 97 minutes. The bridge’s relayer software incorrectly validated fake or self-payments as legitimate deposits.

Before the attack, the bridge account held approximately 200,410 XRP, which dropped to roughly 493.5 XRP after the exploit. The bridge’s operators halted operations immediately upon realizing the extent of the damage.

By August 10 and 11, XRP was trading in the $1.00 to $1.01 range, down from the $1.02 to $1.03 band earlier in the week. This marked the first time XRP fell below $1 since January 2024.

The relayer verification bug allowed the system to accept payments that were either fabricated or looped back to the sender, highlighting a significant security vulnerability.

Ripple, the company, was not involved in the Coreum bridge exploit and faces no direct exposure from the incident. The XRP Ledger functioned as intended throughout the event.