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Vol. 1 · Ed. 2026
CyberGlossary
Entry № 1055

Ronin Bridge Hack (2022)

¿Qué es Ronin Bridge Hack (2022)?

Ronin Bridge Hack (2022)A March 2022 attack on the Ronin Network bridge that drained ~$625 million in ETH and USDC — at the time the largest crypto bridge hack ever — attributed to North Korea's Lazarus Group via compromise of validator keys.


The Ronin Network bridge was the cross-chain bridge supporting Axie Infinity, the popular play-to-earn game built by Sky Mavis on the Ronin sidechain. On 23 March 2022 attackers withdrew 173,600 ETH and 25.5 million USDC (~US $625 million) from the bridge in two transactions. The bridge required signatures from 5 of 9 validator nodes to authorize withdrawals; investigators found that the attackers had compromised four Sky Mavis-controlled validator keys, plus a fifth controlled by the Axie DAO that Sky Mavis had been temporarily authorized to sign on behalf of months earlier — leaving the bridge with only one effective signer. Compromise was achieved via a spear-phishing PDF sent to a Sky Mavis engineer that delivered a backdoor on the engineer's machine. The U.S. Treasury OFAC and Chainalysis attributed the attack to North Korea's Lazarus Group (APT38). The Ronin incident reshaped Web3 security thinking: bridge designs concentrated trust in small validator sets are catastrophic single-points-of-failure, and even social-engineering-grade attacks on a single engineer can have nine-figure consequences.

Ejemplos

  1. 01

    The March 2022 Ronin attack ($625M) was attributed by U.S. Treasury OFAC to Lazarus Group via a phishing-driven compromise of validator nodes.

  2. 02

    Subsequent bridge designs (Wormhole's Guardian set, LayerZero, Across) cite Ronin as the motivating example for moving away from small custodial validator sets.

Preguntas frecuentes

¿Qué es Ronin Bridge Hack (2022)?

A March 2022 attack on the Ronin Network bridge that drained ~$625 million in ETH and USDC — at the time the largest crypto bridge hack ever — attributed to North Korea's Lazarus Group via compromise of validator keys. Pertenece a la categoría de Web3 y blockchain en ciberseguridad.

¿Qué significa Ronin Bridge Hack (2022)?

A March 2022 attack on the Ronin Network bridge that drained ~$625 million in ETH and USDC — at the time the largest crypto bridge hack ever — attributed to North Korea's Lazarus Group via compromise of validator keys.

¿Cómo funciona Ronin Bridge Hack (2022)?

The Ronin Network bridge was the cross-chain bridge supporting Axie Infinity, the popular play-to-earn game built by Sky Mavis on the Ronin sidechain. On 23 March 2022 attackers withdrew 173,600 ETH and 25.5 million USDC (~US $625 million) from the bridge in two transactions. The bridge required signatures from 5 of 9 validator nodes to authorize withdrawals; investigators found that the attackers had compromised four Sky Mavis-controlled validator keys, plus a fifth controlled by the Axie DAO that Sky Mavis had been temporarily authorized to sign on behalf of months earlier — leaving the bridge with only one effective signer. Compromise was achieved via a spear-phishing PDF sent to a Sky Mavis engineer that delivered a backdoor on the engineer's machine. The U.S. Treasury OFAC and Chainalysis attributed the attack to North Korea's Lazarus Group (APT38). The Ronin incident reshaped Web3 security thinking: bridge designs concentrated trust in small validator sets are catastrophic single-points-of-failure, and even social-engineering-grade attacks on a single engineer can have nine-figure consequences.

¿Cómo defenderse de Ronin Bridge Hack (2022)?

Las defensas contra Ronin Bridge Hack (2022) combinan habitualmente controles técnicos y prácticas operativas, como se detalla en la definición.

¿Cuáles son otros nombres para Ronin Bridge Hack (2022)?

Nombres alternativos comunes: Axie Infinity hack, Sky Mavis Ronin breach.

Términos relacionados