Because some of the recovered funds were returned in Monero (XMR), the project used its own money to immediately replenish the smart contracts. This was the first major exploit for the service, which manages over $4B in monthly trading and payment volume, though the core NEAR Protocol remained unaffected. The team has since received several bug bounty submissions, including one correct identification of a vulnerability.
Wednesday, October 21, 2026
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NEAR Intents Recovers $3.8M from First Major Exploit
Crypto13 days ago
The SHIELD AI monitoring system flagged outlier behavior in 40 minutes during an October 1 attack, allowing developers to halt the NEAR Intents bridge and trace stolen assets. General Manager Alex Shevchenko stated that the attacker used a bug in the Omni infrastructure to trick the system into recording fake deposits, bypassing multiple smart contract audits. The team identified the person responsible using internal evidence and pressured them to return the full $3.8 million within 24 hours.
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