Wormhole says $322 million U.S. worth of Ethereum (ETH) has been stolen from its cryptocurrency platform in a coordinated hack.
The cyberattack impacted the Wormhole Portal, a web-based application—also known as a blockchain “bridge”—that allows users to convert one form of cryptocurrency into another.
Bridge portals use “smart contracts” on the Ethereum blockchain to convert an input cryptocurrency into a temporary internal token, which they later convert into the user’s desired output cryptocurrency.
The attacker is believed to have exploited this process to trick the Wormhole project into releasing Ethereum and Solana (SOL) coins far beyond the input they initially provided.
According to reports, the attacker stole crypto-assets worth $322 million U.S. Wormhole confirmed the hack on Twitter and has put its site into maintenance mode while it investigates the incident.
Last week, a similar attack took place against another blockchain bridge when a hacker stole $80 million U.S. from Qubit Finance.
