Catenaa, Friday, October 10, 2025-Shibarium, the Layer 2 blockchain linked to Shiba Inu, has resumed operations following a $4 million hack that forced developers to pause the network for 10 days.
The exploit targeted Shibarium’s Ethereum bridge, allowing an attacker to temporarily control 10 of 12 validator keys using a 4.6 million BONE flash loan.
The attacker drained approximately 224.57 ETH, 92.6 billion SHIB, and $700,000 in KNINE tokens before developers froze staking functions to contain the breach.
Law enforcement and security firms Hexens, Seal 911, and PeckShield were engaged to investigate.
Ownership of over 100 key contracts was migrated to hardware-secured custody, validator keys were rotated, and blacklisting mechanisms were added to staking flows.
Shibarium tested fixes on Devnet and Puppynet before deploying to mainnet. Withdrawal delays for staking were extended to 30 checkpoints, giving developers more time to detect anomalies.
The Root Chain Manager contract was restored to the last valid checkpoint, and the bridge paused after the attack is set for phased relaunch with enhanced safeguards.
Developers confirmed a refund plan for affected users will be rolled out securely in the near future.
Infrastructure improvements include consolidating the official RPC endpoint at rpc.shibarium.shib.io, expanding access through dRPC.org, and updating documentation and monitoring tools for node operators.
Despite the hack, SHIB has risen 7.3% over the past week, trading at $0.00001268, while BONE stabilized near $0.202 after a post-attack spike. The incident highlights the risks of validator manipulation in proof-of-stake systems, but the Shibarium team says security measures now significantly reduce future vulnerabilities.
