The Shiba Inu ecosystem faced a significant security threat on September 13, 2025, when an attacker attempted to exploit Shibarium's bridge to steal over $1 million worth of BONE tokens. On-chain data revealed an effort to move approximately 4.6 million BONE tokens, triggering an immediate response from the project's developers.
Shiba Inu developer Kaal Dhairya clarified that the exploit was not due to a protocol flaw but rather the attacker gaining control of validator keys, allowing them to approve a fraudulent network state. The sophisticated attack involved a flash loan on ShibaSwap to purchase millions of BONE tokens, temporarily gaining majority voting power over validators. Community investigator Buzz.eth detailed how the exploiter used this stake to push through a malicious transaction while simultaneously repaying the loan with funds siphoned from the bridge.
Blockchain records show the attacker successfully moved 224.57 ETH and 92.6 billion SHIB tokens, while approximately 216 ETH was used to settle the loan. The delegated BONE remained trapped due to unstaking delays, and developers froze these tokens before withdrawal. The attacker also attempted to sell about $700,000 worth of KNINE tokens, but K9 DAO's multisig blacklisted the involved wallet.
Developers have suspended staking operations and moved stake manager funds into a hardware wallet secured with a six-of-nine multisig as temporary measures. The breach coincided with a major ShibaSwap update that expands the platform to Polygon, Arbitrum, Base, and other networks, enabling direct token swaps without external bridges. Ecosystem lead Lucie stated this upgrade strengthens ShibaSwap's multi-chain capabilities and prepares for deeper Shibarium integration.
In a related development, Dhairya announced a minor delay in the Shibarium lane powered by Chainlink's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), now scheduled to be active on Monday following the recent incident.