A hacker has been offered a job as chief security advisor at the same company he stole £420million (US$600million) in cryptocurrency from.
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The hacker, known as Mr. White Hat, made the digital heist on August 10, exploiting a vulnerability in Poly Network, a platform that enables transactions between different blockchains.
The company called it “the biggest DeFi heist ever” but also issued a warning that the theft would be pursued as a “major economic crime” by law enforcement in any country.
As the three digital wallets Mr. White Hat used were identified and blacklisted, therefore marking all the cryptocurrency as stolen and useless, the hacker has actually worked with Poly Network to return the cryptocurrency.
#PolyNetwork has no intention of holding #mrwhitehat legally responsible and cordially invites him to be our Chief Security Advisor. $500,000 bounty is on the way. Whatever #mrwhitehat chooses to do with the bounty in the end, we have no objections. https://t.co/4IaZvyWRGz
— Poly Network (@PolyNetwork2) August 17, 2021
In the latest twist, a Medium post indicates that Poly Network has “cordially” invited Mr. White Hat to be the company’s chief security advisor. This came about from daily communications with the hacker since the theft, where he “shared his concerns about Poly Network’s security and overall development strategy”.
Regardless of whether or not Mr. White Hat takes up the offer, Poly Network has also promised a US$500,000 bounty as a reward for exposing the security flaw in the first place. “Whatever Mr. White Hat chooses to do with the bounty in the end, we have no objections,” the company said.
“We are also counting on more experts like Mr. White Hat to be involved in the future development of Poly Network since we believe that we share the vision to build a secure and robust distributed system,” the company added.
To further improve its security, Poly Network also launched another bug bounty, where discovering other critical vulnerabilities in the platform can lead to a US$100,000 reward.
Elsewhere, Activision Blizzard staff have claimed that recruiters are asking them not to talk about the company’s toxic culture as it has been affecting their ability to find candidates.
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