Hackers hacked USD 613 million worth of cryptocurrency from Poly Network. But then, the hacker returned almost half of the amount he stole. Why?
Cybercriminals exploit security vulnerabilities in Poly Network, a platform that connects different blockchains to work together. Poly Network announced the attack and communicated with the hackers to have their assets returned immediately.
Moreover, the amount stolen by criminals is enormous. “The amount of money you hack is the largest in the history of decentralized financial platforms,” Poly Network said.
Interestingly, Poly Network’s efforts began to succeed. The hackers started returning the amount of money they stole. The cryptocurrency now being returned is USD 260 million, so what was stolen is still USD 353 million.
People who claimed responsibility for the theft said they did it just for fun and to find safety holes before being exploited by others. It is said that it was planned from the beginning to return the digital coins they carried.
“I’m not very interested in money,” he said. However, experts believe there are other reasons to return the asset, because of confusion about how to return it. In addition, Poly Network has threatened to take legal action and hackers will be prosecuted.
“While you can steal cryptocurrency assets, laundering them and monetizing them is very difficult because of blockchain transparency and the widespread use of blockchain analytics by financial institutions,” said Tim Robinson, an analyst at Elliptic.
“In this case, the hacker concluded that the safest option was to return the stolen asset,” he added.