A BILLION DOTS

According to CertiK analysis, the attackers successfully bypassed the certification mechanism by submitting a well-structured cross-chain request to the Hattori-side HandlerV1 contract through the ISM protocol of Hyperbridge, together with a true MMR that had historically been accepted by the system。

BlackSec Phalcon subsequently issued a technical alert characterizing this loophole as MMR proof of re-enactment. According to its analysis, the root cause of the gap was that the re-establishment of protection under the HandlerV1 contract only verified whether the Hashi value of a particular request had been used, but that the certification process did not bind the requested payload to the validated certificate。

This logical fault allows the attackers to re-assign a valid historical certificate and match it with the newly constructed malicious request, thus implementing the ChangeAssetAdmin operation via the TokenGateway.onAccept() path, transferring the manager and casting authority of the Whipped DOT contract (at 0x8d...8F90b8) to the address controlled by the attackers。

According to the chainAFTER GAINING THE RIGHT TO CAST COINS, THE ATTACKERS MADE 1 BILLION BRIDGE VERSIONS OF DOT, ABOUT 2,805 TIMES THE AMOUNT OF APPROXIMATELY 356 000 IN CIRCULATION REPORTED AT THE TIME IN THE TAIFUNG。

The attackers then converted the entire chips to approximately 108.2 ETH through the Odos Router and Uniswap V4 mobile pools and transferred them to the attackers ' external account, earning about $2.37 million at the current price and only about $0.74 for the entire attack。

BlockSec Phalcon also mentioned that an attack using the same method had previously occurred against the MANTA and CERE tokens, resulting in a loss of approximately USD 12,000. The combined total loss of the two attacks was approximately US$ 242,000。

Following the incident, the Korean head exchange, Upbit and Bitumb, announced successive suspensions of DOT and AssemblyHub Polkadot networks to protect against potential false deposit risks。

PolkadotOfficially, this loophole affects only DOT, which crosses the chain through Hyperbridge to the Ether. It does not affect DOT ' s assets in Polkadot ecology, nor does it affect DOT, which moves through other bridges. Polkadot and its parallel chains, as well as the original DOT, remained safe and unaffected. At present, Hyperbridge has been suspended to investigate the issue。

It's worth mentioningDespite the size of the castingUp to 1 billionThe actual losses are much lower than theoretical figures。BecauseThe chain of wrapped DOT in the Ether is extremely limited, and the bulk of the wrapped DOT price fell from $1.22 billion to $0.000012831 at short notice, a decline of 99.98 per cent, with most of the coins not effectively realized。

According to CoinMarketCapTHE PRICE OF THE ORIGINAL DOT TOKENS WAS ALSO BRIEFLY SLOWED DOWN BY MARKET SENTIMENT BY A DROP OF NEARLY 5 PER CENT。

X USERDirectlyWHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THAT A CROSS-CHAIN MYTH THAT HAD BEEN SIDE BY SIDE WITH TAIFUNG WOULD HAVE DETONATED SOCIAL MEDIA IN THIS WAY. ONCE AGAIN, THE TRANS-CYBER BRIDGE HAS BECOME THE “HOME OF ACHILLES” OF THE ENCRYPTED WORLD, ONCE UNOBSERVED, AND NOW BECOMES A FULL-OF-THE-SMUGGLING REVELATION. WHEN 1 BILLION DOTS APPEARED, ALL TECHNICAL INDICATORS BECAME WASTE PAPER。

YeahYesUserIt was claimed that low mobility “saved Polkadot's life” during the accident, limiting actual losses to approximately US$ 237,000。

But..The low mobility of bridge assets, while limiting the profitability of hackers, exposes the potential vulnerability of cross-chain interoperability。

The blogger says:Hyperbridge, developed by Polytope Labs, is the Polkadot Eco Interoperability Project, a long-term password certificate replacing the Multiple Signature Commission as the core security mechanism, positioned as the confidence-minimum cross-chain infrastructure. The project had previously emphasized its resilience to common bridge attacks。

But..This eventMaybeIt has been shown that the cipher certification mechanism itself is not sufficient to guarantee security, and that the actual realization logic of the Gateway contract on the side of the Taifeng also constitutes an attack。

From a broader perspective, the incident is a microcosm of the continuing critical security situation in DeFi since 2026. There have been several major attacks since this year, including the $2.15 million bad debt generated by Venus as a result of price manipulation, the 80 million excess casting of Resolve USRs, and the $285 million theft of Drift assets and the wide range of attacks。

Unlimited increases by taking over coin power are not new patterns of attack. It's just that Hyperbridge was lost because of the extreme liquidityTurn it overUnexpectedly down。

According to CertiK, 46 security incidents were recorded in March alone, with total losses of approximately $39.8 million, the highest monthly record since November 2024. CertiK also noted that the increase in the frequency of code loopholes may be related to the emergence of artificial intelligence-assisted loopholes。

The rise in the frequency of attacks is also pushing industry to revisit the boundaries of security and regulation. Circle Chief Strategic Officer Dante Disparte, in response to the Drift Protocol theft, called for agreements, wallets, exchanges and stable currency issuers to consider security and accountability as a shared obligation, and the DeFi agreement could refer to technical protection in the chain of development of mechanisms for melting traditional markets and promote legislation before the next major eventI don't knowThe standard of protection of property rights and financial privacy is enshrined in the law。