How much was lost in the Celer Bridge hack?

The Celer Bridge hack resulted in $236K in losses on August 18, 2022.

What attack technique was used in the Celer Bridge exploit?

The Celer Bridge exploit utilized Other. Understanding this attack vector is critical for smart contract auditors and developers building secure DeFi protocols.

How can developers prevent similar smart contract attacks?

Preventing smart contract hacks requires a combination of secure coding practices, thorough security audits, and understanding common attack vectors like reentrancy, oracle manipulation, and access control flaws. Smart Contract Hacking (SCH) provides hands-on training to help developers and auditors identify and prevent vulnerabilities before deployment.

Celer Bridge Hack

TOTAL LOST $236K

Low Aug 18, 2022 Other

Affected Chain 2022 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1239 By amount stolen

Auditors 1 Prior security audit

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

The cBridge was the victim of a DNS attack during which users who used the bridge through the web interface lost their funds. During the attack, the total damage from users amounted to about $240k.

Details of the Exploit

Celer cBridge is a decentralized and non-custodial asset bridge that supports 110+ tokens across 30+ blockchains and layer-2 rollups.

A vulnerability in the hosting security system was used by a hacker to gain control of the bridge domain and change the external interface to redirect funds passing through the platform to a wallet controlled by the hacker.

Unsuspecting people made exchanges from one blockchain to another and noticed that they could not get their funds. Team members noticed this and issued a warning post on Twitter.

Before the Celer Network team noticed the problem, the hacker managed to take $ETH 128 and withdraw all funds through Tornado.Cash.

Block Data Reference

Involved addresses:

- Ethereum: https://etherscan.io/address/0x2A2aA504…3318E8

- BSC: https://bscscan.com/address/0x5895da88…31e7CF

- Polygon: https://polygonscan.com/address/0x9c8b72f0…eec9f9

- Avalanche: https://snowtrace.io/address/0x9c8b72f0…eec9f9

- Arbitrum: https://arbiscan.io/address/0x9c8b72f0…eec9f9

- Astar: https://astar.subscan.io/account/0x9c8B72f0…eec9F9?tab=transaction

- Aurora: https://aurorascan.dev/address/0x9c8b72f0…eec9f9

0x81d3ec77438b4e99aa99ba25b1dbc3fea317fe3b0x81d3ec77438b4e99aa99ba25b1dbc3fea317fe3b

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Celer Bridge

Date of Incident August 18, 2022

Attack Technique Other

Classification Bridge

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Bridge

Official Website cbridge.celer.network

Protocol Twitter/X @CelerNetwork

Team Anonymous

Source Code Unverified

What the Attacker Needed to Succeed

Understanding the prerequisites for this type of attack helps auditors identify protocols that are most at risk and helps developers build better defenses.

Technical Knowledge Deep understanding of other and Solidity and EVM internals

Capital Required Seed capital to cover gas and initial position setup

On-Chain Access Ability to interact with smart contracts and deploy a custom exploit contract

Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in Celer Bridge's contract logic - root cause: bridge

Execution Speed Precise transaction ordering and timing to exploit the vulnerability within a single atomic block

Obfuscation Plan A strategy to launder and move stolen funds - typically through mixers, cross-chain bridges, or decentralized DEX swaps to resist tracing

What Auditors Should Check

Could this have been caught in audit? Likely — with a thorough Other audit checklist and test coverage

Audited by Audit Report 1 — still lost $236K. Prior audits don't guarantee safety, especially after post-audit code changes.

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to Celer Bridge, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (August 2022).

Verify all logic paths related to Other are guarded by proper access controls and input validation
Review privileged functions (owner, admin, governance) for potential abuse vectors - centralization risks should be documented and bounded with timelocks or multi-sigs

Master these auditing techniques with hands-on labs and real exploit scenarios in the Smart Contract Hacking course.

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Security Audit History

Audit Report 1 Report

Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://cryptopotato.com/an-estimated-128-eth-lost-in-the-celer-…
02
Web Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20220806145130/https://cbridge.celer…

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Other
Root Cause Bridge
Year 2022

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