A group of white hat hackers are busy fixing cryptocurrency bugs and for good reasons. According to a recent report from Hardfork, hackers have earned around $32,150 in 7 days by providing their services to blockchain companies.
The most famous clients of these hackers include EOS, TRON, Coinbase, and Brave. There are a total of 15 more related companies, also related to blockchain, seeking the help of such white-hat hackers. A number of hackers were hired between March 28 and May 16 by these firms, says the report.
Fixing Cryptocurrency Bugs: The Biggest Blockchain Firms
According to the data, Omise hired hackers the most number of times for fixing cryptocurrency bugs. On the other hand, Coinbase only needed one cryptocurrency fix. Augur and Brave software hired the hackers three times each to fix cryptocurrency bugs, while Chainlink, Cobinhood, Monero, and Electroneum required two-time bug fixes.
Omise, the blockchain firm which ordered the most number of fixes, is a payments company based in Thailand. Its most prominent clients include McDonald’s, The Pizza Company and King Power. In October 2018, Omise secured funding from a Japanese company called 31VENTURES. The investment was made to help Omise in expanding its presence in Japan.
The current cost of fixing crypto bugs is determined by the severity of the exploit. Block.one and Aeternity gave a payment of $10,000 to a single hacker for his services.
Binance, another global cryptocurrency exchange, reported that hackers stole around 7,000 Bitcoins from them. In dollars, the amount equals to 55 million dollars. The hacker who stole it still remains on the loose. Which is why the company is offering a reward of $100,000 to fix the most exploitable vulnerabilities in their systems.
Recent Blockchain Attacks
Michael Terpin, The Founder and CEO of Transform Group, had his $24 million worth of cryptocurrency stolen a few years ago. According to Terpin, the hacker gained access to his personal information by corrupting an AT&T employee to work with him. As of writing this article, Terpin, along with 30 more clients, are suing AT&T for such types of attacks.
Another cryptocurrency exchange named Cryptopia almost lost all of its Etherium coins in an attack in January. Furthermore, the company also suffered another attack from hackers that stole Etherium and ERC20 coins worth $16 million, making them the target of the worst cryptocurrency attack this year.
Now, according to Coinfirm, most of these stolen cryptocurrencies have landed up in top crypto exchange companies.
The #Cryptopia hacker just moved funds to a major #crypto exchange according to Coinfirm!
The hacker sent 30790 #ETH (~$7.67M) to a new address (Yellow) and then sent 10 ETH (~$2500) to an exchange address (green) that then landed on their Hot Wallet. https://t.co/xJ5bGphf44 pic.twitter.com/GqOUMgi7Kh
— Coinfirm (@Coinfirm_io) May 20, 2019
Cryptocurrency exchanges are facing millions of dollars worth of damages. So it’d be safe to assume that the demand for white hat hackers to fix cryptocurrency bugs is only going to go up.
Also Read: Hackers Used Microsoft Outlook Accounts To Steal Cryptocurrency
