White Hat Hackers Help Oasis Network to Recover $140M in Stolen Crypto
Decentralized finance platform Oasis Network announced Friday that it had partnered with white hat hackers in an attempt to recover money stolen from Wormhole bridge earlier this month. It is estimated that the hacker stole over $325 million worth of crypto.
The Wormhole bridge connects Solana to other networks, enabling users to transfer tokenized assets between blockchains without having to disrupt ongoing projects.
Cross-chain bridge exploits are among the largest thefts in the crypto space. A notable one is the Ronin attack that led to losses of over $530 million. The notorious North Korean Lazarus state hacking group was reportedly behind this exploit.
According to Peckshield, the wormhole attacker has been busy in the last few weeks. The Exploiter transferred over $150 million in stolen assets last month and redistributed more money on February 13.
How White Hat Hackers Used Security Flaw to Recover Funds
Oasis, who is the developer of multi-sig wallet software into which the attacker placed the stolen funds, disclosed in a blog post that white hat hackers had identified an unknown loophole in the design of the admin multi-sig access.
Oasis reports that the white hat Hackers suggested using this shortcoming to recover the funds. On Friday, the two new partners executed the plan and delivered the recovered funds to a third party. However, the court has denied Oasis access to those assets.
Even though Oasis didn’t mention the name of the white hat hacking group, crypto-focused news website Blockworks reported that Jump Crypto, a web3 infrastructure firm, may have been involved in the recovery efforts.
Blockworks also disclosed that roughly $140 million in crypto had been recovered.
Black Hat Vs. White Hat Hackers
Black hat hackers are those with wicked intentions of compromising systems and stealing information or funds. On the other hand, White Hat Hackers protect networks by identifying and reporting security shortcomings before attackers exploit them.
Many decentralization advocates find the use of white hat hackers to recover stolen funds controversial. As a result, they have constantly called for all DeFi projects to provide users with sole control over their funds.
