Join for quick access. Enter your email below and we'll send confirmation plus sign you up to our newsletter.
By submitting your information, you confirm you are aged 16 or over,
have read our
Privacy Policy
and agree to the
Terms & Conditions. Geographical rules apply.
Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware Newsletter
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Join the club
Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards.
An account already exists for this email address, please log in.
Hacker Returns $256M of $600 Million Cryptocurrency Haul (Updated)
Update 8/11/2021 8am PT: the hacker has now returned $256 million, with more being returned by the moment.
Original article:
That was quick. The hacker who stole approximately $600 million worth of various cryptocurrencies from Poly Network has returned millions of dollars from their haul, The Block reported, after creating a token called "The hacker is ready to surrender."
It's not hard to guess why the hacker waved the white flag: A blockchain security firm called SlowMist claimed to have identified them and collected their email address, IP address, and device fingerprint just hours after Poly Network revealed the attack.
Optimism developer Kelvin Fichter also shared on Twitter some details about how the hacker managed to exploit flaws in Poly Network's system to conduct this heist.
Ok here's how the Poly Network hack actually worked. If I'm reading the contracts correctly, it's pretty genius.August 10, 2021
For the non-developers out there, Fichter summarized the flaw with the following: "Fantastic. No private key compromise required! Just craft the right data and boom... the contract will just hack itself!" Which appears to be exactly what the hacker did.
Poly Network has confirmed the hacker started to return stolen funds today:
So far, we have received a total value of $4,772,297.675 assets returned by the hacker.ETH address: $2,654,946.051BSC address: $1,107,870.815Polygon address: $1,009,480.809 pic.twitter.com/bPFAQk4mvSAugust 11, 2021
That's approximately $4.7 million of the stolen $600 million-plus recovered so far. Now the question is if whoever stole those cryptocurrencies plans to return their entire haul or if they're going to keep a little something to themselves for their effort.
Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware Newsletter
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
Nathaniel Mott is a freelance news and features writer for Tom's Hardware US, covering breaking news, security, and the silliest aspects of the tech industry.
Without knowing why thief returned stolen crypto, we can only speculate. Maybe he got hefty payment from elsewhere, when successfully proved the possibility to stole that crypto. Maybe someone got him and "properly" negotiated. Soldering iron in arse for these guys do wonders.
