Poly Network has offered the hacker who exploited its protocol to steal $611 million in crypto a job as a chief security officer.
Poly Network offered the hacker (or hackers), dubbed “Mr. White Hat”, a role as the protocol’s chief security advisor on Tuesday. “Mr. White Hat” is a common reference for a hacker who receives a bounty or award for exposing a system’s security flaws.
On August 10, “Mr. White Hat” breached the security of DeFi exchanges like Polygon, Binance Smart Chain and Ethereum and stole $266 million in Ethereum, $253 million in tokens on Binance Smart Chain and $85 million in USDC on Poly Network.
In response, Poly Network urged crypto exchanges to “blacklist tokens” that were connected to the alleged hacker. Poly Network tweeted following the massive cybercrime that the company would “take legal action” and “urge[d] the hackers to return the assets.”
On August 12, Poly Network offered up $500,000 to the hacker to return all funds. The hacker declined the bounty the same day, but has since returned $400 million of the stolen assets.
Poly Network offered the hacker the chief security advisor role so that “Mr. White Hat” could continue “contributing to security advancement in the blockchain world,” according to a Medium post. Poly Network also doubled down on their offer of a $500,000 bounty if the hacker returns the remaining stolen funds.
