Security engineer Taylor Hornby flags major Zcash flaw, says Monero could be next in audit scope

ME News reported that on June 6 (UTC+8), security engineer Taylor Hornby said he plans to expand his next round of audits to privacy-focused coins including Monero, after uncovering a critical vulnerability in Zcash's Orchard shielded pool with Anthropic's Opus 4.8 AI model. Hornby found the issue on May 29, saying it could have let attackers mint unlimited, undetectable counterfeit ZEC and had been present for nearly a year. After the disclosure, Zcash fell 38% within 24 hours. Hornby said he chose to report the flaw rather than exploit it, describing the development team as "family" and saying he could not betray them. He is currently employed by Shielded Labs to research protocol vulnerabilities and plans to seek funding from the Zcash holder fund to support future audits. (Source: PANews)