Poly Network/BI India
A ‘white hat’ hacker pulled off the largest single cryptocurrency hack this year, claiming to have done it to expose the security hole in the ‘cross chain’ smart contracts used by the company.
The company went on to suspend transactions and fix the bug, even as it negotiated with the hacker and exchanges to freeze the stolen cryptocurrency temporarily. The entire stolen amount was retrieved over the course of a week, with no loss to customers. They offered a job and a reward of $500,000, which the hacker turned down, but later grumbled about getting no reward.
Poly Network is a decentralised finance (DeFi) platform that allows users to lend, borrow and trade cryptocurrencies at a profit. Smart contracts are built into a crypto token, with self-executing terms that define what the token should do under different circumstances, for example, sell to entity X at $17.99 if price falls below $18.
Cross chain platforms enable users to transact across completely different blockchains, but the technology is still developing, making it an attractive target to hack. A number of recent crypto hacks have targeted DeFi crypto platforms that use cross-chain technology.