The hacker group behind the attack on cryptocurrency platform Poly Network has returned all stolen tokens worth more than 600 million USD.
"At this point, all user assets have been fully recovered," a Poly Network representative said. "We're in the process of returning full control of content to users as quickly as possible."
Poly Network is a blockchain platform used by many cryptocurrency exchanges. Photo: NewCrypto.
On August 10, Poly Network admitted that hackers took advantage of a vulnerability in their system and stole thousands of crypto tokens. This group of hackers is then ready to talk instead of hiding. Initially, the team only agreed to pay $260 million worth of tokens, then continued to send nearly $ 140 million more.
Poly Network then persuaded the hackers to pay, calling them "Mr. White Hat", and promised to recruit these people to work. The company also said it will reward the team with $500,000 for discovering the security flaw.
On August 23, in a blog post, Poly Network said that "Mr. White Hat" had returned the private key of the remaining tokens to the company.
The attack on Poly Network is considered the largest in the history of decentralized finance (DeFi) and is one of the most serious hacks related to cryptocurrencies. Its size is equivalent to the amount of 530 million USD stolen from Coincheck exchange in 2018 and more than half a billion USD stolen from Mt.Gox in 2014.
Some experts suggest that it is likely that an attacker who realizes them will find it very difficult to convert the cryptocurrency into cash to spend, since all transactions are recorded on the blockchain and the ledger. These transactions are usually public, so the illegal funds will be locked if the system detects the transaction.
However, CipherTrace, a leader in blockchain security, considers the Poly Network attack still very serious because it could be the beginning of an alarming trend towards DeFi platforms. Before 2019, DeFi-related cyberattacks were almost non-existent.
Poly Network is a platform that allows exchanging tokens between blockchains, supporting many networks such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ontology, used on many major cryptocurrency exchanges, including Binance and OKEx. According to The Block, the platform was founded by an alliance of blockchain groups including Neo, Ontology, and Switcheo. The project is expected to lay the foundation for cross-chain transactions with lower costs than before.
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