The theft made headlines last week: A hacker had diverted more than 600 million dollars in various crypto currencies from the company Polynetwork through a security hole. Now the story took an unexpected turn.
It was the biggest theft in the history of crypto currencies: 600 million dollars, the equivalent of almost 510 million euros, was stolen from the wallets of the crypto company Polynetwork by a still unknown hacker. “It could have been a billion”he showed off. But a week later, he wasn’t going to jail, but a reward of half a million dollars. And a new job – as head of security for the stolen company.
Polynetwork announced this on Twitter. “We have no plans to prosecute Mr Whitehat and we invite him to become our Chief Security Adviser”, it says on the company’s official account. What is hard to surprise at first, is ultimately a consistent ending to a winding story.
“I have enough money”
Because shortly after the theft became known, the hacker himself commented on it. After first bragging behavior – the prey could have been even bigger if he was also the one “shitcoin”, that is, less valuable currencies – the tone soon changed. It is not about the money for him, maybe he would give something back soon, he announced in entries on smaller transfers with the money. And actually soon began to send back larger sums of crypto coins to their owners. Most of the money has now returned to Polynetwork.
The hacker really seems to have been interested in something other than gaining as much loot as possible. While most crypto exchange hacks are via stolen credentials, Mr. Whitehat had – a nod to that “good” Hackers as opposed to the criminal blackhats – discovered a loophole in the encryption itself. And this is now reported in detail so that it can be closed. He kept communicating with Polynetwork and also answered questions from other Internet users.
The handling of the payment that he has already received shows that it wasn’t about the money. “We sent a reward of 160 ethers, which is about $ 500,000”, confirmed Polynetwork. But the hacker was already thinking out loud about donating the amount instead of keeping it himself. “I have enough money”he announced. That’s fine for the company too. “Whatever he’s up to with it: We don’t mind.” The hacker has not yet decided whether he wants to accept the job offer.
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