The Sandbox hacked for $718M via cross-chain exploit minting 14.9B unbacked SAND tokens

The Sandbox suffered a major security breach when an attacker exploited its cross-chain bridge on Base and BNB Smart Chain, minting 14.9 billion unbacked SAND tokens worth about $718 million. The vulnerability was isolated to the SAND Omnichain Fungible Token on Base, allowing unauthorized minting. The project team has contained the issue, stating the impact is minimal, affecting less than 0.01% of total SAND supply, and no user wallets on Ethereum or Polygon were compromised. Movement of SAND on Base and BSC chains has been disabled, and affected liquidity providers will be compensated after review. The hack highlights ongoing crypto security risks amid rising exploits this year, totaling $1.6 billion lost so far.