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The Poly Network hack seems to come to an end after the cybercriminal returned the last part of the cryptocurrency he stole. The company suffered a massive hack two weeks ago, being referred to as the world’s greatest cryptocurrency theft. The cybercriminal received a 500K reward ($500,000) for returning what he stole from the organization.
The decentralized finance (DeFi) platform was deprived of $611 million following the biggest crypto cybercrime on the 10th of August. Yesterday came the news that the one behind it, by his nickname Mr. White Hat gave back to the company the last part ($141 million) from the stolen money.
Poly Network Cryptocurrency Theft: Brief Back
On the 10th of August, Poly Network was victim to a massive cryptocurrency hack. An anonymous party engaged in stealing Ethereum (ETH) tokens, Binance Smart Chain tokens, and assets in USDC on the Polygon network to the tune of $273 million, $253 million, and respectively, $85 million.
According to BleepingComputer, the addresses of the three wallets the cybercriminal made use of were signed “PolyNetwork Exploiter”. This was an indication for exchanges to be aware of the status of the Poly Network assets. It indicated that no transaction should be processed as the assets were stolen.
The company took immediate action on the same day and asked the hacker through a message to return the assets and work together to find a solution to make the matter come to an end.
SlowMist, a blockchain security organization also released some claims on this topic saying that they have a trace of the IP address of the threat actor, the e-mail address and the device fingerprint.
What happened following the Poly Network messages towards the cybercriminal and the SlowMist claims was that the next day after the security breach, the threat actor started to return in instalments what he stole. It is not confirmed if the reason for his decision was the position of the company on the topic and the message they sent.
500K Reward After Returning All the Money
As we also wrote about, the next day after the massive hack, the threat actor started to release parts from the stolen cryptocurrency in turn. He initially gave back $256 million Binance Smart Chain (BSC) tokens, Ethereum tokens to the tune of $3.3 million, and $1 million in USD coin, keeping the rest for negotiation purposes.
Since the matter has happened, Poly Network has published a Roadmap on the Medium publishing platform where they have kept track of the progress. They started the “Asset Recovery” operation, and yesterday they announced that they concluded the fourth phase, as Mr. White Hat returned the last part of $141, in crypto terms meaning 28,953 ETH and 1,032 Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC).
Thank you for your continued interest. At 08:39:04 AM +UTC on August 23, 2021, Mr. White Hat publicly shared a private key in his possession to the 3/4 multi-signature wallet through an on-chain message. Poly Network has successfully retrieved the remaining 28,953 ETH and 1,032 WBTC (about $141 million). At this point, all the user assets that were transferred out during the incident have been fully recovered. Thanks to Mr. White Hat’s cooperation, Poly Network has officially entered the fourth phase of our roadmap “Asset Recovery”. We are in the process of returning full asset control to users as swiftly as possible.
To thank for his cooperation, on the 19th of August the threat actor received 160 ETH, a 500K ($500,000) reward from the company. The bitcoin was transferred to a public wallet belonging to Mr. White Hat.
Previously, alongside the compensation of a 500K reward, the company also made a proposal to the threat actor to work with them on the position of Chief Security Advisor, but they did not receive any reply. They have also no input from him regarding the 500K reward they transferred into his account.
What happened made the company popular worldwide, firstly because it was the victim of the greatest cryptocurrency hack in the world to date and eventually because it managed to have back the assets that were stolen from it. The cybercriminal behind all this will not be legally charged following Poly Network’s decision.
Who Is Poly Network?
Poly Network stands for a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform, being well known in the world of cryptocurrency. Users can utilize various blockchains to transfer or swap tokens.
Hi! My name is Andra and I am a passionate writer interested in a variety of topics. I am curious about the cybersecurity world and what I want to achieve through what I write is to keep you curious too!
