What could make a hacker return stolen $600m crypto

[davis196]

The fear of punishment drove this guy into returning the funds.
Having 600M USD worth of crypto is like having 600 million problems.Where to hide them?How to launder that amount?How to continue being completely anonymous?There are lots of questions and difficulties.
He is definitely not an ethical hacker.A true ethical hacker would never steal a large sum of money and return that sum.Ethical hackers usually contact the platform owners,when they find a security flaw.They don't just steal the coins.

[AhmadM]

As far as I know, he demanded to keep a certain amount as a reward,

From which source you got that information? I just wondering since according to the above sources provided by OP this "Mr. White Hat" has been offered $500k as rewards by the exchange and wouldn't push any responsibility to him for this incident nevertheless he refused and would send the money back

However, I would like to point out another possibility, and that is that hacking was actually fake in order to promote a certain platform - which in the end was achieved, because it was reported by all mainstream media.

I've thought about the possibility of it as well, I guess it's so tiny. However, if that was their true intention since the beginning then they have achieved it with huge success.

[Emitdama]

A hacker return stolen crypto

But was the thief a good samaritan who stole the money to expose a dangerous security flaw

"I am not very interested in money!” the hacker wrote, adding it was “always the plan” to return the funds.

How can that happen that a hacker does that I return the stolen crypto and say he is not interested in money. This is funny K can say that. What do you think about this story.

LOL, an interesting story. Well, I have seen a few hackers do this, they hack the company and steal their money and return it after. It do happen, and like some comments here have said, they do it to make the company realize the faults in their system. And sometimes these companies can go ahead to even hire these hackers to work for them and fix these things.

I have even seen companies that hired and paid white hathackers to check their platform and discover where their security might be faulty. One of the companies that I have seen do this in the past is Coinbase, there was a time they were hiring white hat hackers. So this is nothing new, and it’s good to have these hackers around, and not just the bad ones.

[wxa7115]

A hacker return stolen crypto

But was the thief a good samaritan who stole the money to expose a dangerous security flaw

"I am not very interested in money!” the hacker wrote, adding it was “always the plan” to return the funds.

How can that happen that a hacker does that I return the stolen crypto and say he is not interested in money. This is funny K can say that. What do you think about this story.

There are only two possibilities that I can think about why something like this can happen, the first one is that he's in fact telling the truth, we need to know that a lot of hackers do not really have an economic motivation when they do what they do, most of the time they care about the challenge of being able to perform a great hack, I know this doesn't really make a lot of sense for a lot of us but that is the mentality that they have.

The other possibility is that he in fact had the intention of stealing that money but he was unable to erase his tracks completely and the authorities were behind him already and then he decided to change his story and then he returned the money in order to avoid going to jail.

[CaVO32]

A hacker return stolen crypto

But was the thief a good samaritan who stole the money to expose a dangerous security flaw

"I am not very interested in money!” the hacker wrote, adding it was “always the plan” to return the funds.

How can that happen that a hacker does that I return the stolen crypto and say he is not interested in money. This is funny K can say that. What do you think about this story.

There are only two possibilities that I can think about why something like this can happen, the first one is that he's in fact telling the truth, we need to know that a lot of hackers do not really have an economic motivation when they do what they do, most of the time they care about the challenge of being able to perform a great hack, I know this doesn't really make a lot of sense for a lot of us but that is the mentality that they have.

The other possibility is that he in fact had the intention of stealing that money but he was unable to erase his tracks completely and the authorities were behind him already and then he decided to change his story and then he returned the money in order to avoid going to jail.

These scenarios you pointed out may really be the reasons why the hacker returned the money. Some of them don't care about the money anymore, especially if they are already settled in life. So what they are after is recognition from their community about his capabilities to hack a multi-million dollar company or show to the company about their vulnerabilities. Whereas, the possibility that he has not erase all his tracks may possibly be the reason and he just said that it is part of his plan to return the money. I guess, hard to know the absolute truth on this matter.

[CLS63]

This is really one of the very interesting news we got recently. We have known for a long time that hackers attacked crypto exchanges and many companies to steal an incredible amount of money from them. And this caused us to think that once hackers infiltrate the security system of a company, there is no salvation. However, this example is one of the rarest ones. I don't remember something like this happened so many times so far. Companies must be really lucky to come across hackers who have good will.    It looks like he/she just wanted to show the security problems in his/her own way. This company must give the hacker a really good prize. Otherwise, it might not end up well for them in the future, who knows.  

[Vaskiy]

None can conclude his mind thought. I've got two different  understanding. He has showed him as a good Samaritan, maybe by nature he's not interested in others money and needs to pin point the flaw. The next is the fear of legal issues for theft. In the past people found it difficult to trace, but now things are getting easier. He could've got traced and warned, if not he couldn't have returned the entire fund. Atleast he could've taken a small pinch of it.

[Luke Briggs]

He should think of the consequences if he steals the money. He may return the money to him just to show off his skills.
Maybe there is enough money. There are many ways to launder money. As long as he wants, he can launder money little by little.
We cannot understand what hackers are thinking. Every hacker is a genius.

[timerland]

You'd be stupid to believe that someone would be such a selfless good Samaritan for absolutely no reason.

I think that there was certainly some sort of leverage that the network held against him, or he screwed up covering his paper trails. Certainly not something that was voluntary in the slightest.

Another possibility was that he simply didn't anticipate the success that he would have and the sheer value of the hack. It's hard to keep thing down low when it's a whole network's assets being hacked as you know they'd be coming after you with all their resources.

[rugrats]

A hacker return stolen crypto

But was the thief a good samaritan who stole the money to expose a dangerous security flaw

"I am not very interested in money!” the hacker wrote, adding it was “always the plan” to return the funds.

How can that happen that a hacker does that I return the stolen crypto and say he is not interested in money. This is funny K can say that. What do you think about this story.

In my opinion 600 million dollars is a huge amount and it is very difficult to launder into legal money , There is no reason for a good hacker to not be greedy , All problems like I said above are 600 million Dollars are a huge amount of money . All life around us is controlled by laws and banks , if he suddenly becomes rich and has a huge amount of money in the bank card he/she will be immediately suspected money laundering through cryptocurrencies. It is also possible that this is a type of hacker who just mistakenly aims to find the company's vulnerabilities to see their mistakes and help them fix those mistakes.

[xSkylarx]

It's just a simple answer: there are still nice people in the world because he/she returned it, he just exposed it or pentested it with his knowledge, or he simply did it for fun because he didn't want the money. I'm not a hacker, but it's incredibly satisfying if you've pawned a website legally, but it makes you nervous when it comes to illegal activities. But, in the end, he basically tried to pawn the website for a fun.

[Lucius]

As far as I know, he demanded to keep a certain amount as a reward,

From which source you got that information? I just wondering since according to the above sources provided by OP this "Mr. White Hat" has been offered $500k as rewards by the exchange and wouldn't push any responsibility to him for this incident nevertheless he refused and would send the money back

If the source has accurate information, then the hacker has conditioned that the $33 million in USDT be unfrozen as a condition that he return the remaining amount, which is much more than the $500 000 offered to him if he cooperates. He seems to have targeted stablecoins after all, just as I mentioned before, he’s not someone who knows the basics - because he obviously didn’t know that stablecoins like the USDT can be frozen.

The Poly Network hacker, ‘Mr White Hat’, has refused to cooperate and return the stolen coins; wants $33 million worth of stablecoins to be unfrozen. The USDT account the attacker is referring to has $33 million in stablecoins. Tether has frozen the funds, and that is irking the perpetrator the most.

[AhmadM]

^Alright, I got the point now. Somehow that part was missing in OP's reference source, which makes me a bit confused with the whole story once read your post earlier. I have the same thought as you if the hacker not very interested was totally a lie since he has targeted a certain amount on it.

[fiulpro]

A hacker return stolen crypto

But was the thief a good samaritan who stole the money to expose a dangerous security flaw

"I am not very interested in money!” the hacker wrote, adding it was “always the plan” to return the funds.

How can that happen that a hacker does that I return the stolen crypto and say he is not interested in money. This is funny K can say that. What do you think about this story.

Even if he does that it was still wrong in the first place to do such thing, this might be taken as having good intentions in the first place but at the same time it's a breach of security.

-There is something called *hacking* and then there is something called *ethical hacking*, here I am pretty sure that there was nothing ethical going on and at the same time if he was not interested in money, he could have just transferred or taken, just 1$!! That might have worked out perfectly well too.

Maybe he was too scared of being discovered since he might have left some small clues on the way and realized it, this was just an intelligent move to cover it up.

[blckhawk]

Didn't the hacker had a statement about why he didn't want the money and he just returned it, the only one that I remembered was that he wanted to show the vulnerability of the company or something like that. It's sort of like a power play to me in my opinion because that man is clearly implying that he can do what he wants.

[imstillthebest]

he already explain the reason and maybe he is rich already ? and theres also people that dont want money but there are more important things for them such as helping other people , practicing and improving their skill . in his case his skill is hacking and he did both  .
he hack the website before other bad hackers hack it  . thats a rare kindness he shows but i hope he continue this good deed in other exchanges and time will come that no people will get hacked and lost their funds .

[Kittygalore]

Cause the dudes a white hat hacker meaning that they aren't in it for the money, they're all about the puzzle and problem solving and trying to deter the real bad guys. They're like the white knights of the internet except they aren't a deplorable human being who worship e-girls.

[ultrloa]

A hacker return stolen crypto

But was the thief a good samaritan who stole the money to expose a dangerous security flaw

"I am not very interested in money!” the hacker wrote, adding it was “always the plan” to return the funds.

How can that happen that a hacker does that I return the stolen crypto and say he is not interested in money. This is funny K can say that. What do you think about this story.

Curious to know about why they do that since they already got that huge amount from their action did but seems the hackers is not on bad side so maybe they want to warn all the platform the possible damage they possibly got for not securing their platforms. For sure many are now putting some extra efforts to make their site more secure and thanks for that hackers since this could save us for upcoming attacks since for sure the exchange are now prepared for any possible attempts.

[AicecreaME]

There were several times already that the hackers who have stolen a huge sum of money returned back what they stole to the company. I guess hackers do this either because they just want to expose that the security of the company has its weak spot that needs to be addressed and fixed or they suddenly realize the gravity of what they did and decided they can't go and push through because there are still many obstacles that need to be destroyed. Although I think most of the time the reason is the former. I don't think the hackers would go to such great lengths if they aren't equipped with enough knowledge and skills to totally bag the assets. They just want the company owners to be shaken and show the risk of being complacent about the security. Because once the security is infiltrated by hackers and is compromised, all the savings, assets, and investments of the people who trusted the company are at extreme risk. Consistent maintenance and update is a must to avoid scenarios like this. A lesson with a grain of salt to other ceo's.

[wack slacker]

I'm thinking of two theories about the Polygon cross-chain theft of $600 million.
First, this project hacks itself to polish its name and the $600 million return event was staged by themselves.
Second, there is a hacker like 'Mr. ROBOT', he doesn't care about money. His attack is just a warning for the DEFI and crypto space.