The Solana Foundation, on Monday, announced an upgrade to Solana’s on-chain security measures amid the ever-rising cyber threats. In the fresh upgrade, Solana Foundation has launched a 24/7 threat monitoring centre dedicated to assisting protocols that control over $10 million in total value locked (TVL). The development comes just days after Solana-based Drift Protocol was exploited for over $280 million.
Often pitted as the commercial rival to Ethereum, Solana has emerged as a popular blockchain option for DeFi builders and memecoin projects in recent years. In order to update its safety features, Solana has joined hands with Asymmetric Research, a security firm that works with Layer-1 and Layer-2 blockchains on customized security solutions.
Moving forward, Solana-built DeFi protocols with over $10 million in TVL will have to complete a formal verification to prove their legitimacy and security provisions. This will include a mathematical, proof-based method that will “exhaustively” check smart contract correctness via every possible state and execution path.
“For protocols managing significant user funds, rigorous security measures are mandatory and these resources are offered to ensure security,” the foundation managing the Solana ecosystem noted.
Solana’s STRIDE
STRIDE or Solana Trust, Resilience and Infrastructure for DeFi Enterprises is the blockchain’s answer to multiple security loopholes that have emerged as threat points for the DeFi ecosystem. The initiative will essentially tighten Solana’s grip around the evaluating and monitoring of Solana projects.
Protocols with high TVLs, under STRIDE, will have to undergo independent, extensive audits to ensure that their security provisions are advanced and properly deployed.
Solana Foundation will be publishing the details of these evaluations publicly to increase the transparency within the Solana fabric.
“STRIDE will provide ongoing opsec and active threat monitoring. Coverage is calibrated to each product’s risk profile, with protocols securing the most value receiving the most rigorous protection,” the foundation said, highlighting its agenda to flag suspicious on-chain activities before they translate into full-scale lapses.
Then there’s SIRN
In order to offer prompt help to distressed protocols, Solana has launched the Solana Incident Response Network (SIRN) on Monday. A cluster of security firms and researchers have been onboarded to the SIRN initiative to assist Solana-based protocols in times of secutity breach or threat instances.
These security firms include Asymmetric Research, OtterSec, Neodyme, Squads, and ZeroShadow. Collectively, the security platforms will share threat intelligence and work together to counterattack active security lapses.
With an influx of institutional interest in blockchains and crypto, the Solana Foundation said, it realized regular upgrades to on-chain security is impertive now more than ever.
Tools like Hypernative and Range Security have been made available to Solana projects to provide institutional-grade security infrastructure and real-time risk and security alerts for multisig protocols and crypto wallets.
Developers building on Solana will also be able to access the Riverguard tool free of cost. This tool can simulate attack environments on the blockchain for protocols to test their security guardrails.
Drift Hack
Last week, DeFi platform Drift Protocol was hacked for over $280 million. As per Drift, the atatckers used a Solana transaction feature called “durable nonces” to pre-sign administrative transfers that let them bypass Drift’s multi-sig security within minutes resulting in the success of the attack.
The platform is investigating the attack and has initiatied an on-chain dialogue with the wallet holders into which the stolen funds were wired.
Drift, that has suspended its services for the time being, has claimed that the attack was intricately designed over around six months.
Fresh findings from the probe has revealed that the attackers took time to build a relationship with the Drift team by introducing themselves at events and even wiring-in over a million dollars into one of Drift’s ecosystem vaults.
The Solana Foundation has urged its DeFi community to stay vigilant as attackers become more pro-active and sophisticated in executing their exploits.