Aptos Blockchain Discloses Critical Vulnerability That Could Have Exposed $700 Billion in Assets

Huo Xing Cai Jing reports, according to Coindesk, that white-hat hackers from the security firm Hexens discovered a vulnerability in the Aptos blockchain, which has since been patched. If exploited maliciously, this vulnerability could have exposed up to $70 billion in digital assets to systemic risk, including stablecoins and cross-chain bridges. In late February, Hexens researchers reported a critical flaw in the Move virtual machine—the execution environment for on-chain smart contracts—to the Aptos development team. They identified it as a “stale cache vulnerability” leading to a type confusion bug, wherein software could be tricked into misidentifying one on-chain resource as another. The researchers simulated the attack in a live network environment with a success rate exceeding 90%. Using a set of well-configured servers costing only $3,000, they simulated approximately one-third of the validator network, and the attack required no insider access or special privileges. The Aptos team immediately patched the vulnerability after it was disclosed, resulting in no loss of funds.