🌉 76 minutes. That’s how long it took Cysic to stop a hacker who had conjured 10 million CYS tokens out of thin air. Too late: about $727,000 had already been siphoned off.
📌 The facts (The Block, Cointelegraph, Crypto Briefing, Oct. 18)
• Oct. 17, 12:31 UTC: 10M CYS created without authorization on BNB Chain through Cysic’s bridge
• In less than 30 minutes, 7.2M were sold (including 5.65M for about 588,000 USDT, or ~$0.10 each)
• The proceeds moved to Ethereum: ~306.6
$ETH , worth about $727,000
• 13:47 UTC: the address was blocked and 2.8M CYS frozen. The bridge remains closed, with no reopening date
🧠 How it works
A bridge transfers a token from one blockchain to another. It locks your tokens on one side and creates an equivalent amount on the other, in response to a “message.” According to Cysic, the hacker accessed a database used by the bridge and sent a fake minting message. The bridge obeyed.
⚖️ The nuance
• Cysic says no tokens already held in users’ wallets were stolen
• But 10M is about 6% of the ~160.8M CYS in circulation: real dilution for holders
• The vulnerability was reportedly outside the audited code, as with many Q3 hacks
👤 Mariam (a fictional character), a seamstress in Niamey, moves a little crypto between two networks to pay lower fees. She keeps three things in mind: don’t leave your tokens sitting in a bridge, follow only the project’s official accounts, and ignore any message promising a “refund” in exchange for connecting your wallet.
✅ Takeaway: a bridge is like a drawbridge. Whoever controls the lever controls the crossing.
Do you use bridges, or stick to a single network? 👇
Not financial advice. DYOR.
Sources: The Block, Cointelegraph, Crypto Briefing, Cysic Foundation.
#Bridge #Sécurité #Crypto #Afrique