ForceBridge Hack

TOTAL LOST $3.9M
Medium Acces Control Exploit nervos

Summarize with AI

Affected Chain nervos Incident surface
Recovered - No recovery reported
All-Time Rank #478 By amount stolen
Protocol Type Canonical Bridge Target category

Incident Overview

Bridge between Ethereum and Core Network

Incident Report

Protocol / Project ForceBridge
Date of Incident
Affected Chain(s) nervos
Attack Technique Acces Control Exploit
Classification Protocol Logic
Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Canonical Bridge
Smart Contract Language Rust
Protocol Twitter/X @Coredao_Org

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories
DeFi Interoperability Governance Solana Ecosystem Cross-Chain Intent

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 acces control exploit and Solidity and EVM internals
Capital Required Seed capital to cover gas and initial position setup
On-Chain Access Ability to interact with nervos smart contracts and deploy a custom exploit contract
Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in ForceBridge's contract logic - root cause: protocol logic
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 Acces Control Exploit audit checklist and test coverage

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to ForceBridge, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (June 2025).

  • Verify all logic paths related to Acces Control Exploit are guarded by proper access controls and input validation - see the Access Control Attacks attack class for patterns
  • 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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Related Attack Classes

The technique used in this hack maps to these vulnerability classes in our security curriculum:

See all Access Control Attacks examples →

Sources & References

Learn to Prevent the Next ForceBridge

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