On August 27 at approximately 9:00 PM UTC, infrastructure providers running validator nodes in the SKALE Network were compromised and the SKALE IMA Bridge was exploited. The attacker was able to drain ERC-20 assets held within the affected bridge infrastructure. The total value lost is being assessed now and a full report with affected wallets will be released as soon as possible.
The SKALE team immediately began investigating the incident and is actively working with affected parties to assess the full impact, trace the movement of assets, and determine the appropriate next steps. As soon as the attack was discovered the bridge was immediately paused. The team is now working with authorities in major jurisdictions to help them try and recover funds and enforce action.
The incident was contained to the IMA Bridge infrastructure associated with SKALE on Ethereum.
SKALE on Base was not affected by the attack.
SKALE on Base operates as a separate deployment with its own infrastructure and architecture. As a result, the attacker was not able to extend the exploit into the SKALE on Base environment.
Applications, infrastructure, and functionality running on SKALE on Base continue to operate normally.
This separation between the SKALE deployments helped limit the scope of the incident and prevented the attack from affecting the broader SKALE on Base ecosystem.
It is also important to distinguish the affected bridge assets from the SKL token itself and staked SKL tokens. The only impact was on assets in the SKALE Europa chain and SKL tokens on ETH mainnet and staked tokens remain secured.
The SKALE team is conducting a detailed investigation into how the attack occurred and the exact scope of the incident.
The team is already in communication with affected parties and is working to:
- freeze and recover stolen assets
- determine the precise attack vector;
- trace the movement of the affected assets;
- assess the full impact of the incident;
- review the affected bridge infrastructure; and
- implement any necessary security measures before affected functionality is restored.
Security incidents require both speed and accuracy. We therefore want to avoid speculation while the investigation remains ongoing.
Additional technical information and next steps will be shared as soon as they have been sufficiently verified.
Security remains a fundamental priority for SKALE.
The increasing number of attacks against blockchain bridges and cross-chain systems serves as an important reminder that security architectures must continuously evolve as attack methods become more sophisticated.
The SKALE team will continue working with affected parties and security experts to fully understand the incident, strengthen the affected infrastructure, and communicate additional findings transparently as the investigation progresses. The team will also continue to work with authorities to freeze and recover funds.
