The Shibarium network has fallen victim to a large-scale hacking attack, resulting in the theft of crypto assets worth approximately $2.4 million. The attack was carried out by exploiting a vulnerability in the Shibarium bridge, which allowed the hacker to sign a malicious contract and gain control over the network’s validators.
This is reported by Finway
Hacking Mechanism and Transaction Details
The hacker gained access to the signing keys of the majority of the platform’s validators – 10 out of 12, while only two validators, K9 Finance and Unification, did not support the malicious transaction. As a result, the hacker was able to acquire 4.6 million BONE in a single transaction, temporarily gaining the voting rights of a validator. Subsequently, they signed the malicious contract and withdrew 224.57 ETH and 92.6 billion SHIB from the bridge, which at the current exchange rate amounts to about $2.4 million. The payment for the flash loan was made using these same assets.
“According to their statements, the hacker used funds from the bridge to purchase 4.6 million BONE in a single transaction, allowing them to temporarily gain the voting rights of a validator.”
Additionally, the hacker attempted to sell KNINE crypto assets worth approximately $700,000, but these attempts were unsuccessful as K9 Finance promptly blacklisted the hacker’s address. Other tokens, such as LEASH, ROAR, TREAT, BAD, and SHIFU, have not yet been moved or liquidated.
Security Measures and Market Implications
In response to the incident, the Shiba Inu team suspended staking and unstaking functions on the network, freezing borrowed BONE tokens that were in a pending unstaking state. The developers also announced plans to change the validator keys to enhance security, and after verifying the system’s integrity, they promised to return the assets to the stake manager. Furthermore, the team has reached out to law enforcement and expressed a willingness to negotiate with the hacker on the condition of returning the stolen funds.
In the wake of the hack, the price of the BONE token surged nearly 125% – from $0.17 to $0.37 according to TradingView.
It is worth mentioning that earlier, on September 8, 2025, the Swiss cryptocurrency exchange SwissBorg also fell victim to a hack, losing $41 million in Solana tokens.