ETHPoW Attackers Take Off With 200 ETHW

Ethereum’s hard fork that functions with a proof-of-work consensus mechanism, ETHPoW, is now the subject of more bad news following its bumpy launch last week.

Namely, the Ethereum mining fork was hit for 200 ETHW through a “bridge replay” exploit. According to the blockchain security company, BlockSec, the attackers moved 200 WETH by using the Omni bridge, then replayed the message on ETHPoW’s proof-of-work chain to gain an additional 200 ETHW.

Ironically, this is yet another problem that ETHPoW suffers because of chainIDs. Namely, the Omni bridge utilizes an old chain ID that can’t verify cross-chain messages involving ETHPoW, which has enabled the exploit.

Following the exploit, the value of the ETHW token immediately dropped by 37%. Afterward, it slightly recovered and is now trading at $6.88, according to CoinMarketCap.