Incident reportBridge exploitEthereum
Nomad Bridge −$190M
The first crowd-sourced hack. Anyone could join.
What happened
After an upgrade, Nomad's bridge accepted messages it should have rejected. Once one attacker showed it worked, hundreds of wallets copied the same transaction and drained about $190 million in a free-for-all.
Timeline
Aug 1
The first drain. Copycats follow within minutes.
Aug 2
The bridge is empty. Nomad asks people to send funds back.
Aug 2022
Some white-hat returners give back part of the funds.
Aftermath
A fraction was returned by people who called themselves white hats. Most wasn't.
Date2022-08-01
Lost$190M
WhoHundreds of people at once
It was a routine upgrade.
Lesson One bad upgrade turned a hack into a group activity.