The new protection system, called Brigade, enables automated monitoring and detection of malicious transactions in blockchain platforms that rely on so-called cross-chain bridges and protocols.

In the blockchain world, cross-chain bridges are the driving force behind decentralized finance (DeFi) technologies. They allow the exchange of assets between different blockchain technologies without the need for a central intermediary.

Our research on Brigade addresses one of the current major security issues in decentralized systems: the high complexity and vulnerability of cross-chain bridges and their protocols. In recent years, the cross-chain infrastructure has been responsible for a significant proportion of the largest security incidents, as attackers exploit complex interactions between multiple blockchains. Brigade tackles this challenge by continuously monitoring cross-chain transactions, correlating relevant on-chain and off-chain events, and automatically identifying malicious behavior. The system can be implemented without changes to existing protocols that are already in use.

In a comprehensive retrospective analysis of real cross-chain attacks, we demonstrated that Brigade successfully detects attacks with total damages of approximately $4 billion. These results underscore the potential of automated, holistic security monitoring for decentralized finance and cross-chain systems.

The design and evaluation of Brigade will be presented at the 24th International Conference on Applied Cryptography and Network Security (ACNS) 2026 in New York.

The original proposal for Brigade has been developed in the master thesis of Pascal Winkler, which received the Dies Academicus Prize.