By Alicia Maher
After facing the biggest exploit since the inception of decentralized finance, Poly Network, a DeFi protocol has rolled out a bug bounty program to prevent similar occurrences in the future. Last week, the global crypto community woke up to shocking news following a hack by a white hat hacker which saw him cart away $600 million in stablecoin, USDT and other cryptocurrencies from Poly Network. According to reports, the hacker had taken advantage of a bug on the network’s code.
Hacker Returns Stolen Funds, Claims Exploit Just for Fun
Although all the stolen funds- except for a little amount frozen by Tether- have been recovered, the DeFi protocol revealed that the bounty program is geared towards forestalling exploits of the same nature in the future. The funds were stolen across many network chains including Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and ECO Chain. As revealed by experts, the $600 million exploit was a pointer to how DeFi protocols can be vulnerable, thereby putting users’ funds at risk.
Poly Network to Tighten Network’s Security, Partners with ImmuneFi
Seeking to up the ante on the protocol’s security, after announcing the schedule for resuming operations on the network, Poly Network collaborated with Immunefi, foremost bug bounty platform. The bug bounty program with a budget of $500,000 is open to security firms, white hat hackers, devs as well as anyone who is passionate about DeFi security. Poly Network’s bounty program has been scheduled to launch on Tuesday.
In its latest announcement, Poly Network tendered an apology to its users, while also commending the hacker who has been dubbed ‘#MrWhiteHat for showing goodwill by returning the funds.
Meanwhile, in a Q & A session conducted by the hacker himself, he had claimed that the plan had always been to return the funds. He added that the exploit was carried out to expose the vulnerability on the protocol’s network. However, some industry experts were quick to fault his claims as they argued that because the hacker could not liquidate the funds, he had to return it.
DeFi Plagued By Incessant Exploits
Various hacks and exploits continue to undermine the growth of DeFi. In the past, similar attacks have even occurred with Impossible Finance being the most recent until Poly Network was exploited. As earlier mentioned, the attack on Poly Network is the biggest in the history of DeFi and similar attacks, perhaps less than the amount, are projected to happen in the coming months.
Although being a similar incident, the Poly Network exploit stands out from the past ones, given that the hacker returned almost all the funds with subsequent claims that it was just for fun. Other protocols affected in the past were not as lucky as Poly Network.
Exploits of this nature are usually followed by a massive crash in the prices of the affected protocols’ native tokens. Impossible Finance’s native token, $IF, had fallen by over 98% following a hack, then recovered a few days after. Blockchain experts continue to advise DeFi protocols to conduct comprehensive audits on their codes.