Verus Ethereum Bridge Exploited for $11.58M in Crypto Theft
The Verus Ethereum bridge was reportedly exploited for $11.58 million on May 17–18, 2026, marking another significant breach in cross-chain infrastructure. Attackers targeted the bridges verification system to drain 1,625 ETH, 147,659 USDC, and 103.57 tBTC, according to reports from security firms Blockaid and PeckShield. The stolen funds were quickly consolidated into 5,402 ETH, with a current value of approximately $11.4 million, per Etherscan data. At the time of the attack, ETH traded at $2,117.61, USDC hovered near its $1 peg, and tBTC stood at $76,459. The Verus team has yet to issue a public statement on the breach. How the Attack Happened According to Blockaid, the exploit leveraged a forged cross-chain transfer payload to manipulate the bridge into approving fraudulent transactions. The attacker bypassed key validation steps, tricking the system into releasing funds from the bridge‘s reserves. Security firm ExVul confirmed this assessment, attributing the issue to inadequate source-amount validation in Verus’s smart contract code. The vulnerability could reportedly be patched with minor Solidity code adjustments. This attack bears similarities to past high-profile bridge exploits, such as the $325 million Wormhole breach and the $190 million Nomad Bridge hack in 2022. In all cases, attackers exploited weaknesses in cross-chain verification processes, underscoring the