Regarding the $3.8 million hack incident targeting the NEAR Intents cross-chain protocol, Illia, co-founder of NEAR Protocol, posted an account of the incident from start to finish. He said the attack stemmed from a vulnerability in Omni infrastructure interactions, and the scope was limited only to USDT on BSC. The official team quickly patched the vulnerability within 1 hour and promised full reimbursement to affected users. At the same time, they emphasized that they will fully roll out “formal verification” and the AI monitoring system SHIELD to deal with increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks. （Background recap: NEAR Intents hacked for 3.8 million! The official promised “full compensation,” and access to deposits and withdrawals on 11 public chains was urgently suspended） （Additional context: America’s first spot NEAR ETF is listed! Bitwise launches NRR, with a built-in staking challenge yielding 5%）   Cross-chain infrastructure NEAR Intents experienced a security vulnerability earlier, drawing intense attention from the community. In response, Illia ( @ilblackdragon ), co-founder of NEAR Protocol, went straight into the spotlight on October 1. Through the community platform X, he published a long post detailing the technical specifics of the hacker attack and the official response measures, reassuring the community. Earlier today, NEAR Intents was exploited for $3.8m. SHIELD, the AI security layer on Intents, detected outlier behavior and Intents were temporarily paused. All of the affected users will be compensated in full. The attacker exploited a bug in the Omni deposit/withdrawal… https://t.co/5lQSxtF8BZ — Illia (root.near) (, ⋈) (@ilblackdragon) October 1, 2026 Omni vulnerability affected only BSC; patched at extreme speed within an hour. In the post, Illia confirmed that NEAR Intents had been maliciously exploited previously, with losses of approximately $3.8 million. However, he specifically emphasized that the scope of this vulnerability was extremely limited. The attacker took advantage of a bug during interactions between Omni’s deposit/withdrawal infrastructure and NEAR Intents smart contracts, and the only affected assets were USDT on Binance Smart Chain (BSC). Fortunately, the AI security layer “SHIELD” built into NEAR Intents detected the abnormal behavior immediately and triggered a service pause mechanism right away. After the technical team detected the threat, it took about one hour to successfully identify and patch the vulnerability. NEAR Intents and near.com are now back online. Only a small number of affected public chains (such as Polygon and Optimism, etc.) still need to remain paused for about 12 hours while waiting for the Omni infrastructure to be fixed. Promises of full compensation: the core NEAR network is absolutely safe. In response to the biggest concern among users—fund security—Illia boldly reiterated that all affected users will receive “full reimbursement.” He further clarified that this incident was purely a single vulnerability at the Intents protocol layer. The core NEAR Protocol, the NEAR token, and all other applications deployed on the NEAR ecosystem were “completely unaffected.” For users’ regulated public-chain assets held in HOT wallets or within near.com, as long as the service restores connectivity, users can still freely swap them into other unaffected tokens. Fighting the AI hacker era: adopting “formal verification.” Illia pointed out that NEAR Intents processes up to $4 billion in monthly transaction and payment volume. As a key cross-chain connector, it must implement the highest level of security standards. He acknowledged that the cryptocurrency industry is entering an era of more precise cyberattacks. In recent times, well-known projects including Bitget, MetaMask, and Lido have all been targeted; hackers are using AI systems to continuously and persistently look for weaknesses in infrastructure. To prevent problems before they happen, Illia announced that the NEAR ecosystem is developing a “formal verification” system for smart contracts. This technology can mathematically and logically prevent an entire category of common vulnerabilities. The system is expected to be incorporated into the official release process soon. At the same time, he urged industry peers to join SHIELD’s collective defense network, improving attack detection and mitigation across Web3 ecosystems through faster information sharing. Related reports Bitget hacker withdrew $83 million worth of XRP! XRPL does not support freezing; Ripple has no way to act North Korean crypto hackers flee to South Korea and fail! With the whole body encased in plaster and sent back on a wheelchair to Pyongyang FBI exposed personal data such as names and addresses of all agents hacked by a hacker group; sample data matches Interviewers who write code get tricked? North Korean hackers used fake job recruiting to steal $10.7 million ”NEAR founder responds to 3.8 million hacker incident: vulnerability patched within 1 hour; will introduce formal verification defenses.” This article was first published on BlockTempo (動區BlockTempo (動區動趨 - the most influential blockchain news media)).