Crypto platform Poly Network rewards hacker with $500,000 'bug bounty'
Poly Network, the cryptocurrency platform which lost $610
million in a hack earlier this week, confirmed on Friday it had offered the
hacker or hackers a $500,000 "bug bounty".
In a statement it thanked the hacker - who it dubbed a
"white hat", sector jargon for an ethical hacker who generally aims
to expose cyber vulnerabilities - who had returned the bulk of the funds for
"helping us improve Poly Network’s security".
The network also said it hoped "Mr. White Hat"
would contribute to the blockchain sector’s continued development upon
accepting the $500,000 reward, which it had offered as part of negotiations
around the return of the digital coins.
The statement did not specify the form in which it would pay
the $500,000. It said the hacker had responded to the offer but did not say if
it was accepted.
On Thursday digital messages shared on Twitter by Tom
Robinson, chief scientist and co-founder of crypto tracking firm Elliptic,
showed a person claiming to have perpetrated the hack had said Poly Network
offered him the bounty to return the stolen assets.
A lesser-known name in the world of crypto, Poly Network is
a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform that facilitates peer-to-peer
transactions with a focus on allowing users to transfer or swap tokens across
different blockchains.
The as-yet unidentified hacker or hackers appear to have
exploited a vulnerability in the digital contracts Poly Network uses to move
assets between different blockchains, according to blockchain forensics company
Chainalysis.
According to Friday's statement, the hacker has returned
$340 million worth of assets and transferred the bulk of the rest to a digital
wallet jointly controlled by them and Poly Network.
The remainder, held in tether, was frozen by the
cryptocurrency firm behind the stablecoin.
"After communicating with Mr. White Hat, we have also come
to a more complete understanding regarding how the situation unfolded as well
as Mr. White Hat’s original intention," the statement said, without giving
further details.
Poly Network announced the hack on Tuesday, but the
following day said the hackers had begun returning the digital coins they had
taken.
The hackers said in digital messages shared by Elliptic that
they had perpetrated the attack for fun and that it was always the plan to
return the tokens.
Some blockchain analysts have speculated however they might
have found it too difficult to launder stolen cryptocurrency on such a scale.
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