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Multichain hacker returns 322 ETH and collects “huge” fees for debugging

In a dramatic turn of events this week, one of the multichain hackers returned 322 ETH ($974,000 at press time) to the cross-chain router protocol and one of the users lost funds.

However, the hacker withheld 62 ETH ($187,000) as a “bug bounty,” and a total of 528 ETH ($1.6 million) remains to be returned after the mine.

Earlier this week, newspapers reported vulnerability with WETH, PERI, OMT, WBNB, MATIC and AVAX tokens and $1.43 million was stolen.

Multichain announced on Jan. 17 that the critical vulnerability was “reported and fixed.”

However, the publicity of the vulnerability provided an opportunity for some attackers to break in and steal more than $3 million. There are still critical vulnerabilities in 6 tokens, but Multichain has drained about $44.5 million from multiple chain bridges to secure them.

One of the hackers, who describes himself as a “white hat,” contacted and a user who lost $960,000 yesterday to negotiate a return of 80% of the funds for a bug fix fee.

Follow tweets 20 by ZenGo Wallet co-founder Tal Be’ery, the hacker claims to have “rescued” the rest of Multichain users who were being attacked by bots in a defensive attack.

Funds were returned through 4 transactions according to ether scan. On January 20th, the hacker returned 269 ETH ($813,000) in 2 direct transactions to the user he stole and held a 50 ETH bug bounty ($150,000).

The user is refunded the hacker response:

“Thank you for your honesty.”

Today, the hacker also returned 50 ETH ($150,000) via 2 transactions to the official multichain address and withheld the 12 ETH ($36,000) bug bounty.

Multichain (formerly Anyswap) aims to be “the preeminent router for Web3”. The platform currently supports 30 chains including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Avalanche, Litecoin, Terra, Fantom.

In one tweets On Jan. 20, Multichain co-founder and CEO Zhaojun acknowledged that contracts in the Multichain bridge need a pause function to deal with similar incidents in the future.

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Annie

Championing positive change through finance, I've dedicated over eight years to sustainability and environmental journalism. My passion lies in uncovering companies that make a real difference in the world and guiding investors towards them. My expertise lies in navigating the world of sustainable investing, analyzing ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) criteria, and exploring the exciting field of impact investing. "Invest in a better future," I often say. That's the driving force behind my work at Coincu – to empower readers with knowledge and insights to make investment decisions that create a positive impact.