Victim of 0 million cyber attack offers its hacker a job as chief security adviser

About a week after a hacker stole $610 million from PolyNetwork in what was likely the biggest heist in the history of so-called decentralized finance, the victim has offered its attacker a job.

The hacker claimed the attack against the PolyNetwork platform – which lets users swap tokens across multiple blockchains – was an act of “hacking for good” to “save the project.”

The attacker has since promised to return the money and so far delivered about half of it.

PolyNetwork has responded by lavishing praise on the hacker, who it dubbed “Mr. White Hat,” a term used to describe “ethical” hackers who find vulnerabilities in computer networks and alert companies and organizations to fix them.

On Tuesday, in an act of gratitude or perhaps exasperation, PolyNetwork offered Mr. White Hat a job as “Chief Security Adviser.”

The identify of the hacker isn’t yet known, nor is it clear if Mr. White Hat is a single individual or a group of attackers.

“To extend our thanks and encourage Mr. White Hat to continue contributing to security advancement in the blockchain world together with PolyNetwork, we cordially invite Mr. White Hat to be the Chief Security Adviser of PolyNetwork,” the company said in a statement.

“Again, it is important to reiterate that PolyNetwork has no intention of holding Mr. White Hat legally responsible, as we are confident that Mr. White Hat will promptly return full control of the assets to PolyNetwork and its users.”

In the meantime, PolyNetwork is still struggling to get all of its clients’ money back. After returning half of the network’s assets, the hacker deposited the rest – around $235 million – into a joint account that is protected by two keys needed to unlock the funds. One of the keys was given to PolyNetwork, and the hacker has kept the other.

PolyNetwork has been pleading with Mr. White Hat to turn in his key so the funds could be accessed ever since. The hacker has yet to do so, despite the job offer and another offer that would allow the hacker to keep $500,000 of the funds.

The hacker’s behavior has stumped experts, who’ve been trying to trace the funds since they were initially stolen.

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