Axelar severs Secret handshake after $4.67M IBC heist slips through the cross-chain back door 🚪

Cross-chain interoperability protocol Axelar has disabled its connection to Secret Network after an exploit drained approximately $4.67 million in tokens from assets bridged via the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol. The protocol disclosed the incident on June 19, stating that tokens were taken through the Axelar-to-Secret IBC route and that the issue appears isolated to the Secret-side ICS-20 smart contract used in the Cosmos IBC connection between the two networks. "Approximately $4.67M worth of tokens" were taken, according to Axelar.

Axelar said its emergency committee disabled the Secret and Secret-SNIP connections immediately after becoming aware of the incident, and that it has contacted relevant exchanges and law enforcement agencies while investigations continue. According to the protocol's initial assessment, the exploit is limited to assets bridged from Axelar to Secret Network through the affected IBC route, with no other IBC connections appearing impacted and no other Secret Network tokens affected.

The protocol emphasized that Axelar's core protocol remains unaffected and pointed to the Secret-side ICS-20 contract associated with the Cosmos IBC integration as the apparent origin of the vulnerability rather than its own validator network or core interoperability infrastructure. "We're preparing a detailed post-mortem," the protocol said.

The incident adds to a growing list of bridge-related security events across the crypto sector, where interconnected networks and smart contracts continue to present attractive targets for attackers. At the time of publication, neither Axelar nor Secret Network had released a detailed technical explanation of how the exploit occurred.