A cyber robber who managed to hack and get access to more than $ 600m (£ 433m) worth cryptocurrency was given $ 500,000 and legal immunity as an option to return the seized cryptos.
Poly Network made the controversial proposal after the cyber hacker already promised to return the money.
Can A Company Cannot Guarantee Immunity?
The attack was revealed on Tuesday when Poly Network publicly called for the hijacker to return the money.
A former FBI official said “private companies do not have the authority to promise to protect the hacker from criminal prosecution”.
This attack is one of the biggest hacks in history. Poly Network said the man had abused the vulnerability of their system.
Stolen Money Being Returned
Most of the money has now been returned, although the crypto hacker says he is not interested in the reward.
Shortly after hacking the system of the company, the unknown hacker posted notes on a publicly available blockchain mocking the company and asking for advice on how to launder the stolen property.
Later, the cyber robber also said he ‘don’t like money and is not interested in it” and promised to return it all.
On Thursday evening, Poly Network said most of the assets left over from the hacker had been transferred to a wallet authorization of which lies with the criminal and the company.
How Much Money Does The Hacker Hold Now?
Poly Network says it is still waiting for the payment process to be completed but is working with the criminal.
Part of the stolen coins were frozen as soon as the attack happened and could not be used by the cyber criminal in anyway.
“The hacker still holds $33.4m of stolen Tether [tokens] – because it has been frozen by Tether themselves,” Tom Robinson, co-founder of Elliptic, a London-based blockchain analytics and compliance firm, told the BBC.
He added that it could be seen on the blockchain that “a few thousand dollars’ worth of various other tokens” were being held onto by the hacker.