Alex Lab’s XLink, a Bitcoin bridge, has partnered with Fireblocks and Ancilia in response to a recent security breach involving $10 million in user funds.
The collaboration with Fireblocks will introduce multiparty computation (MPC) technology to XLink’s wallet and smart contract management.
In a written Q&A with Cointelegraph, Chiente Hsu, CEO and co-founder of Alex, explained:
“[The] partnership with Fireblocks will implement two-of-three multiparty computation wallets to hold all these user assets, with one key held by the validator network of Bitcoin Oracle (that validates the XLink bridging events), another key held by Fireblocks and the last key held by Coincover who provides the disaster recovery service.”
Related: Kaamel Technology to lead investigation into XLink's $10M breach
New security measures
XLink’s partnership with Ancilia, a Web3 security firm, will provide continuous monitoring and real-time threat detection, offering instant alerts and proactive breach prevention measures.
Hsu explained that the “source of the hack” was a private key leak with “admin access” to a smart contract holding user assets, adding that:
“The partnership with Fireblocks will bring maximal security to our user assets, which has been planned for some time (originally scheduled for late June roll-out), but the recent incident meant we are now accelerating its deployment.”
Related: Alex Labs rolls out post-exploit recovery plan
Alex security update
The team released a security update on June 17, explaining that the attacker responsible for the breach had broadcast over 9,700 transactions.
According to the X post, traceable transactions rose from 300 to almost 10,000 without signs of slowing as new wallet addresses were created to disperse the stolen Stacks (STX) funds.
“[...]the number of attacker’s unique addresses has grew from around less than 100 to more than 4,700+ addresses in the span of 7 days. Smaller amounts of STX are transferred to thousands of new addresses, which then are later sent to CEXs.”
Related: Bitcoin bridge XLink resurrection underway post $10M hack
Ongoing security efforts
The new partnership with Fireblocks and Ancilia is part of XLink’s broader strategy to improve the security and management of assets on the Bitcoin (BTC) bridge.
XLink has also collaborated with Cobo, a digital asset custody provider, to integrate MPC technology and “establish new security standards in the blockchain industry.”
XLink continues to focus on facilitating safe BTC utility across multiple blockchains through its omnichain liquidity network.