The attacker who on Tuesday, August 10, stole more than 600 million dollars from the decentralized finance protocol (DeFi), Poly Network, returned almost all the cryptocurrencies. Only 48 hours after violating the smart contracts and draining the funds, the hacker returned the digital assets to a multi-signature wallet provided by the platform.
The service for the operation of multiple blockchains confirmed on Wednesday 11 that had already received more than 256 million dollars in cryptocurrencies, a fact reported by CriptoNoticias. Now the DeFi announced that another USD 238 million were being transferred to the aforementioned portfolio pending another contact with Mr. White Hat, as the pirate was “baptized” by the DeFi.
Although the figure has not yet been completed, the hacker claimed, through a message in the metadata of one of the contact transactions with Poly Network, that he would return all funds. In fact, the attacker rejected the payment of a reward for 500 thousand dollars that the platform had offered.
Among the cryptocurrencies still to recover are another 33 million dollars in the USDT stablecoin that were frozen by Tether once the hack was made public. It is not clear when these funds would be unlocked to be returned to their users. The service sent a message to the operators to wait for further instructions on the assets.
«We hope that users who are temporarily unable to transfer their assets will try to remain calm and patient, as your understanding will help the team to handle recovery from their assets in the most appropriate way ”, explained Poly Network today Friday, August 13.
DeFi vulnerabilities and types of hackers
DeFi apps have gained popularity in recent years, but have also been the target of attacks. What happened with Poly Network shows how vulnerable this type of platform can be. This particular case is considered the worst attack on a decentralized finance service due to the large amount of funds involved.
Another point to note is that, when deciding to return the funds, the attacker could be regarded as a “white” or “gray” hat hacker. In the first case, hackers use their knowledge to detect security problems and help solve them.
In the second case, hackers, although they sometimes act illegally, detect vulnerabilities, exploit them and then explain how they did it to try to fix the flaw in the code. This would be the case of Mr. White Hat, who after violating Poly Network, answered questions from the community about what happened.
There is a third type of hacker that is the most dangerous and is known as a “black hat” hacker. This type of pirate is considered a criminal since he seeks to commit a malicious act or a crime on computer networks.
