Multichain hacker returns 322 ETH, keeps hefty finders fee

In a melodramatic twist, 1 of this week’s Multichain hackers has returned 322 ETH ($974,000 astatine the clip of writing) to the cross-chain router protocol and 1 of the affected users.

However the hacker kept 62 ETH ($187,000) arsenic a “bug bounty”, and a total of 528 ETH (worth $1.6M) remains outstanding aft the exploits.

Earlier this week, quality emerged of a information vulnerability with Multichain relating to the tokens WETH, PERI, OMT, WBNB, MATIC, and AVAX, and $1.43 cardinal was stolen. Multichain announced connected Jan. 17 the captious vulnerability had been “reported and fixed.”

However, publicity astir the vulnerability reportedly encouraged a fig of antithetic attackers to swoop in, and much than $3 cardinal successful funds were stolen. The captious vulnerability successful the six tokens inactive exists, but Multichain has drained astir $44.5m of funds from aggregate concatenation bridges to support them.

Yeah, span declaration request intermission function. https://t.co/lPjLsE5EtR

— Zhaojun (@zhaojun_sh) January 20, 2022

One of the hackers, calling himself a "white hat" has been successful connection with some Multichain and a idiosyncratic who mislaid $960,000 successful the past time oregon so, to negociate returning 80% of the wealth successful instrumentality for a hefty finders fee.

According to a Jan. 20 tweet from ZenGo wallet co-founder Tal Be’ery, the hacker claimed they hadbeen “saving the rest” of the Multichain users who were being targeted by bots, successful an enactment of antiaircraft hacking.

The funds were returned crossed 4 transactions. On Jan. 20 the hacker returned 269 ETH ($813,000) successful 2 transactions straight to the idiosyncratic helium stole it from and kept a bug bounty of 50 ETH ($150,000).

The relieved idiosyncratic responded to the hacker:

“Well received, convey you for your honesty.”

Overnight, the hacker besides returned 50 ETH ($150,000) crossed 2 transactions to the authoritative Multichain address, and kept a bug bounty of 12 ETH ($36,000).

Related: Multichain asks users to revoke approvals amid ‘critical vulnerability’

Multichain (formerly Anyswap) aims to beryllium the “ultimate router for Web3.” The level supports 30 chains astatine the moment, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Avalanche (AVAX), Litecoin (LTC), Terra (LUNA), and Fantom (FTM).

In a tweet connected Jan. 20, the Co-Founder and CEO of Multichain Zhaojun conceded that Multichain span contracts request a intermission relation to woody with akin incidents successful future..

Cointelegraph has contacted the task for comment.