A hacker performed the largest crypto heist of all time: $610 million. Today I'm gonna tell you his story.
On August 10, 2021, the Poly Network company, a company that focuses on the exchange of tokens or cryptocurrencies between different blockchains, published a letter in twitter. In it, they begged what appeared to be a hacker, to please return the
millions in cryptocurrencies he had stolen from them. Analysts had noted that nearly $610 million had been withdrawn from the Polygon network, the Binance Smart Chain, and Ethereum.
Shortly after, the hacker (or group of hackers) contacted the company and began to return some of the funds, claiming that he wasn’t interested in the money. Almost half
was returned in the first hours. The person in charge was nicknamed Mr White Hat, alluding to the so-called ethical hackers or good hackers.
Little by little, Mr White Hat returned all
the money. Refusing to keep anything obtained. Several persons have wondered what the intention of the robbery had been then; to which the hacker replied that he had done it for fun. And furthermore, he hoped that the company would learn something from all the vulnerabilities that were in the system.
Immediately, the Poly Network company began working hand in hand with several cybersecurity companies to strengthen the protocol and prevent attacks like the one that happened.
Contrary to what we might think, the company didn’t initiate legal proceedings or investigations into the hacker, even though
he had committed the largest cryptocurrency theft in history. In fact, they asked him to work with them as a security officer.
Although Mr White Hat didn’t accept.
The operation exposed the great deficiencies and risks involved in the world of cryptocurrencies, where all funds can be lost in the event of theft or scams. The company itself was publicly grateful to Mr White Hat for his contribution to improving its security systems. In fact, they sent the hacker a message, offering him a $500,000 reward as a token of appreciation for returning the stolen funds.
However, Mr White Hat refused the reward, stating that he was not motivated by money. Faced with this situation, several factions were created. On the one hand, those who saw in this attack a visibility of the vulnerability of the system. Although on the other hand, several people didn’t consider that Mr White Hat returned the cryptocurrencies as a good deed.
They believe he was unable to exchange the stolen funds, and he had no other way than to return them, and in this way earn an image of a savior. And even for other people, both the hack and Mr White Hat's statements were a trick put together by the developers of the project themselves, who wanted to draw the attention of the crypto
community.
What do y'all think about this? 👀
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