Casper Network back online following security incident halt

The Casper Network has resumed operations after a temporary halt due to a security breach. On July 31 at 3:18 pm UTC, 64 validators unanimously agreed to resume validation, representing 85% of the CSPR staked on the network. 

According to a post on the X social platform, the network has recovered and is now fully operational. The security incident was resolved through a concerted, decentralized effort involving validators, engineers, and other stakeholders.

Overcoming technical challenges

The update published by the Casper team noted that the pause in network operations presented a technical challenge, especially as it occurred in the middle of an active era rather than at the end. Two blocks containing four transactions were removed to address this, effectively orphaning these transactions and their effects on the blockchain.

The upgrade process involved deploying a new Casper-node binary and standard configuration files. 

Following the network pause, validators needed to manually initiate the upgrade and implement the new version, a process that required real-time synchronization. Additionally, a tool was created to scan the entire blockchain from its inception to the present, aiming to ensure that no other instances of exploitation had occurred.

Validators approve node restart

With the validators’ consent, the nodes were restarted, removing the two problematic blocks and applying the necessary global state changes. Once 66.7% or more of the consensus stake reached this point, the network was unpaused, and block creation resumed.

As the Casper network resumes operations, WazirX, a well-known Indian cryptocurrency exchange that also suffered a security breach that resulted in the theft of approximately $230 million, has announced a strategy for user fund recovery.

Unlike WazirX, which reported no evidence of compromised signer machines in its preliminary investigation of the July 18 hack, the Casper team has made significant progress in identifying the root cause of the breach.

Other prominent crypto hack victims in July include algorithmic protocol Compound Finance ($24 million) bridging protocol Li​.Fi protocol ($10 million), decentralized AI protocol Bittensor and liquidity provider Rho Markets ($8 million each).

Cointelegraph contacted the Casper network team for more information on its root cause analysis but had yet to receive feedback at the time of publication.

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