Cross-Chain Bridge Security: Preventing Multi-Billion Dollar Exploits
Cross-chain bridges have become critical infrastructure for the multi-chain ecosystem, facilitating over $15 billion in monthly volume across 200+ protocols. However, they’ve also become the most targeted attack surface in DeFi, with $2.8 billion stolen from bridge exploits in 2024 alone. This comprehensive guide examines the technical vulnerabilities in cross-chain bridge designs and provides practical security implementations for developers building interoperability solutions. The Cross-Chain Bridge Threat Landscape Cross-chain bridges face unique security challenges due to their complexity and the high-value assets they hold. Unlike smart contracts operating on a single chain, bridges must maintain security assumptions across multiple blockchain environments with different consensus mechanisms, finality guarantees, and security models. ...