Terra Blockchain Loses Over $6 Million in Exploit Targeting Astroport (ASTRO)

Cosmos-based Terra blockchain lost over $6 million after being hit with an exploit today, as reported by blockchain security firm Beosin.

The Terra blockchain, powered by Cosmos, encountered an exploit today, leading to a substantial loss of over $6 million, according to blockchain security firm Beosin. The exploit involved the theft of 60 million ASTRO tokens, $500,000 in Tether USD (USDT), $3,5 million in USD Coin (USDC), and 2,7 Bitcoins (BTC).

In response to the exploit, the Terra blockchain was halted at block height 11430400 for nearly 20 minutes.

Beosin's analysis suggests that the attacker exploited a reentrancy vulnerability related to the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) function of the Cosmos ecosystem, which was previously disclosed in April this year.

To mitigate the issue, Terra has implemented an emergency upgrade, and validators collectively holding over 67% of the voting power on Terra's ecosystem have upgraded their nodes to prevent the exploit from recurring.

Following the news of the exploit, the price of ASTRO tokens, which are native to the decentralized exchange Astroport, experienced a significant drop of up to 71%. In contrast, the price of LUNA tokens remained relatively stable, showing a decline of 3% over the last 24 hours.

Moreover, the total value locked (TVL) on Terra also took a hit after the exploit, decreasing by 15%.