According to a recent announcement by Oasis Network on February 24, the decentralized finance (DeFi) platform has partnered with whitehat hackers to recover funds stolen from the Solana Bridge Wormhole.
On February 2nd, the Wormhole was hacked, and approximately $326 million worth of cryptocurrency was stolen, and the attackers later transferred some of the funds.
Wormhole connects Solana to other DeFi (decentralized financial infrastructure) networks. As a result of Solana’s high speed and low cost, token assets can be transferred between blockchains without disrupting ongoing projects, platforms, or communities.
The Wormhole Network exploiter has been busy over the past week. The hackers, who transferred $150 million in stolen assets in January, had redistributed the funds on February 12, according to PeckShield.
Image: SuperCryptoNews
Ethical Hackers To The Rescue
Oasis, the developer of the multi-signature wallet software where hackers deposit their funds, revealed in a blog post that whitehats only flagged “a previously unknown weakness in the admin’s multisig access design.”
Now, in response to the February 21 judgment of the High Court of England and Wales, they are using this flaw to get their money back.
To accomplish this, Oasis decided to collaborate with a group of ethical hackers known as “white hats”, which on February 16 has suggested a way to recover stolen assets.
Image: PublishOx
On Tuesday, the two groups put their plans into action and transferred the recovered assets to a court-authorized third party.
“We can also confirm that the assets were sent directly to a wallet controlled by an authorized third party, as required by the court,” the announcement said.
“We have no control over or access to these assets,” Oasis Network added in a blog post.
White Hat Vs. Black Hat Hacker
When it comes to protecting your network, white hat hackers are the ones to call. Figuratively white hat hackers deliberately seek out and report security flaws so that they can be patched before they are exploited in an attack.
Malicious hackers, sometimes known as “black hats,” are those who attempt to disrupt networks, steal information, or compromise systems.
While Oasis did not disclose the identity of the whitehat hacker group, Blockworks reported that infrastructure company Web3 Jump Crypto may be behind the recovery efforts.
The report also suggests that after expenses, $140 million in assets have been recovered.
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Meanwhile, the project insists that user funds are never at risk and may resolve the reported vulnerabilities.
The use of questionable methods to recover stolen assets may be controversial and may be challenged by decentralization advocates who argue that blockchain should provide individuals with sole control over assets.
-Featured image from Pea Soup Digital