Verus-Ethereum Bridge Exploit Drains $11.6 Million and Halts Network

An exploit against the Verus-Ethereum bridge drained about $11.58 million in crypto assets, according to reports from Blockaid, PeckShield, and GoPlus. PeckShield said the attacker stole 103.6 tBTC, 1,625 ETH, and 147,000 USDC, then swapped the proceeds into roughly 5,402 ETH; the attacker wallet was reportedly seeded with 1 ETH from Tornado Cash. Security researchers also identified attacker and destination wallets as the theft unfolded.

Verus said its network was halted, with most block-producing nodes taking themselves offline after the attack’s effects appeared, while developers investigated the root cause and recovery options. GoPlus said the exploit may stem from cross-chain message validation or signature forgery, a withdrawal logic bypass, or an access control flaw in the bridge, which was launched to move assets between the privacy-focused Verus blockchain and Ethereum.