The culprit who returned the majority of the 611 million dollars in hijacked virtual currency has been offered a 500,000 dollars reward in the latest twist in the Poly Network crypto heist. The award is a bug reward, which is a financial reward provided by IT companies to people who disclose vulnerabilities.
Poly Network refers to the perpetrator as a “white hat” in relation to his credentials as an ethical hacker in a declaration. The digital financial platform praised the attacker for “assisting in the improvement” of its protection, but did not mention how the prize would be paid or if it should be received.
As per texts shared on Social media by Tom Robinson, the lead researcher and founder of Elliptic, a virtual currency tracking firm, an individual stating to be the offender verified that Poly Network would have provided him a 500,000 dollars bounty to transfer the seized wealth and pledged that he’d never be made liable for the scandal.
Poly Network links several blockchains, the ledgers on which cryptos are built, so that they may collaborate. On Tuesday, the firm disclosed that it had been the target of a major cyber theft in which an attacker stole around 611 million dollars in Ether, Shiba Inu, as well as other virtual currencies.
After saying they were willing to concede, the attacker started repaying the ill gotten gains on Wednesday. On Friday, Poly Network announced that the culprit has returned 340 million dollars in funds in a certain digital wallet.
Everything that is remaining is the 33 million dollars in tether which has been locked by the cryptocurrency’s creator.
It’s unknown what led the attacker to change his mind. Several analysts believe the hackers might just have struggled to launder and cash off the immense quantities of looted cryptos.
Others believe the attacker was terrified of being discovered and convicted when investigators revealed a plethora of personal information, along with an email account and source ip.
More generally, the odd set of circumstances highlights the dangers of crypto, an uncontrolled realm plagued with hackers and frauds.
