TECH NEWS – The bitcoin thief has been offered a position as a chief security adviser and a $500,000(!) reward. They might even give you $100,000!

Last week, more than $600 million in cryptocurrency was stolen in an elaborate digital heist when a hacker exploited a vulnerability in the Poly Network, a platform used to conduct cryptocurrency transactions through various blockchains. If that wasn’t a wild enough story, the hacker later returned almost all of the stolen currency after the illegal transactions were flagged (which made it practically impossible to convert the money into US dollars anyway).

In another bizarre twist to the story, Poly Network announced in a Medium post today that it had been in daily contact with the hacker dubbed Mr White Hat. Poly Network claims that the hacker shared his concerns about “Poly Network’s security and overall development strategy” in the post.

Poly Network then offered Mr White Hat the position of Poly Network’s chief security adviser. It is not uncommon for hackers to make a living testing the digital defences of large corporations for a fee. The idea is this: who better to keep you safe than the person who robbed you?

#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

“We also expect to involve more experts like Mr White Hat in the future development of Poly Network, as we believe we share a common vision of building a secure and robust distributed system,” the company wrote. “Furthermore, to express our gratitude and encourage Mr White Hat to continue to contribute to the security evolution of the blockchain world with Poly Network, we cordially invite Mr White Hat to become Poly Network’s Chief Security Advisor.” – they added.

Poly Network has also promised Mr White Hat a $500,000 bug bounty for discovering the exploit that led to the massive theft, although the hacker initially refused. Poly Network sent him the $500,000 anyway, to please him afterwards. The company also said that it would not hold Mr White Hat legally liable because it was “confident that Mr White Hat will immediately return full control of the assets to Poly Network and its users”.

Although called Mr White Hat, some users found it hard to believe that the theft was an unexpected security test and not simply a messy heist that both parties are now trying to recover.

And if you’re still counting, $340 million was returned on Friday, plus $238 million for a multi-signed wallet, with the remaining $33 million currently waiting to be unlocked. Poly Network also took this moment to turn lemons into lemonade and announced a bug bounty program. Up to $100 000 can be awarded for discovering vulnerabilities on their platform.

Source PC Gamer