An artificial intelligence security scanner identified a critical vulnerability in the XRP Ledger that could have enabled attackers to drain funds from victim accounts without access to private keys, potentially putting $80 billion at risk.
Security engineer Pranamya Keshkamat at cybersecurity firm Cantina and the company’s AI security bot discovered the “critical logic flaw” in Ripple’s blockchain on Feb. 19, the XRP Ledger Foundation announced Thursday.
The vulnerability was located in the signature-validation logic of a yet-to-be-enabled amendment.
The flaw would have allowed malicious actors to execute transactions from victim accounts, including draining funds, without ever possessing the victim’s private keys. However, the amendment was still in its voting phase and had not been activated on mainnet, meaning no funds were at risk at the time of discovery.
Hari Mulackal, CEO of Cantina and Spearbit, said the autonomous bug hunter called Apex found the critical bug. “Had this been exploited, it would have been the largest security hack by dollar value in the world, with nearly $80 billion at direct risk,” he stated, likely referencing XRP’s market capitalization.
Beyond the potential theft of funds and modification of the ledger state, the vulnerability could have “destabilized the ecosystem,” according to the XRPLF. The foundation warned that “a successful large-scale exploit could have caused substantial loss of confidence in XRPL, with potentially significant disruption for the broader ecosystem.”
The autonomous AI security tool developed by Cantina AI identified the vulnerability through “static analysis of the rippled codebase.” After detection, the tool submitted a disclosure report that allowed Ripple engineering teams to validate the issue and begin patching the code.
Following the discovery, validators were advised to vote against the amendment. An emergency release, rippled 3.1.1, was published on Feb. 23 to block the amendment from activating, the XRPLF stated.
The incident highlights the growing role of artificial intelligence in blockchain security. AI is increasingly being deployed for cybersecurity purposes to identify code bugs that may be overlooked by human reviewers.
Just one day after the XRP Ledger vulnerability was discovered, Anthropic released Claude Code Security, its AI cybersecurity vulnerability scanner, on Feb. 20. The company claims the tool “can reason like a skilled security researcher.” The announcement caused a slide in public IT security company shares as investors weighed the implications of AI-powered security tools.
The XRP Ledger vulnerability represents a significant near-miss for the cryptocurrency ecosystem. With the amendment still in its voting phase, the early detection by AI scanning technology prevented what could have been a catastrophic exploit affecting one of the largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.
The signature validation code batch amendment was designed to improve transaction processing on the XRP Ledger. However, the flaw in its implementation would have created a severe security weakness that attackers could have exploited to compromise user accounts across the network.
Cryptocurrency security incidents have increasingly impacted the digital asset space, with personal wallet compromises and protocol vulnerabilities leading to billions in losses. The successful identification and patching of the XRP Ledger vulnerability before deployment demonstrates the potential value of AI-powered security tools in preventing future exploits.
The collaboration between human security engineers and artificial intelligence systems in identifying the XRP Ledger vulnerability may represent a new model for blockchain security. As codebases become more complex and amendments more frequent, automated scanning tools could become essential components of the security infrastructure protecting digital assets.
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