What could make a hacker return stolen $600m crypto

[goinmerry]

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.

We don't know the real reason behind it as I doubt these hackers will try to say anything about it.

But since they will return what was stolen, then it's good for all.

After that, the exchange should now hire the best of best developers and site operators to upgrade the security of the site to prevent the same case in the future. Not all hackers will return a stolen money. That was crazy to think.

[BuNga_cute]

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.

Two possible reasons;
1. Hacker doesn't want to get exposed for having that huge amount of money.
2. Or the hacker could be rich and just want to expose the system flaws for being vulnerable to hacking, or he just want to prove to himself that he could do such thing.

There were actually people who has been doing what they love to do not only because of money. Crypto is hard to be traced he could've gone to several mixing services and slowly spend them over time, but he didn't.

I believe more in the second possibility that you mentioned and it happens a lot, usually hackers just want to prove their abilities. The goal is that there
are hackers who want to be accepted for work on the platforms that he managed to hack,  by showing the weaknesses of the systems of those platforms.
Or there are also hackers who really want to have fun doing this, because sometimes for hackers to do this it can get their adrenaline pumping. It's true
that not all hackers do that just for money, so it's not surprising to find a hacker who finally returns the stolen crypto.

[dothebeats]

If they are in it for the thrill and helping out the platforms that they are hacking. There’s really no incentive for them in returning such a huge amount IMO, except if they just really want out to point some vulnerabilities and are doing the hacks in good nature and education to the platform owners. Good thing they returned that kind of sum, because if other people did that, that $600m will be gone in no time without a trace.

[zanezane]

Probably morals or just the thrill of solving a complex puzzle which is represented by the company of Poly Network. There are other reasons but most of them are financials, not to mention that the hacker wanted to demonstrate his power to the company and directly telling them that they can't do anything if he finds sone vulnerabilities and probably the dudes too scared of going to jail knowing how deplorable going to that is.

[Jating]

Probably morals or just the thrill of solving a complex puzzle which is represented by the company of Poly Network. There are other reasons but most of them are financials, not to mention that the hacker wanted to demonstrate his power to the company and directly telling them that they can't do anything if he finds sone vulnerabilities and probably the dudes too scared of going to jail knowing how deplorable going to that is.

Not sure if he has the moral compass to return the loot. He could have told the project themselves ahead of the hacking and shows the vulnerabilities of their application. With that there is no hacking at all and everything will not blown out of proportions. So to make the matter worst, the hackers could spent time in jail because that stealing. But he avoided it by returning everything and getting $500k bounty instead. So everything ends good, and lessons are learned here

[Leviathan.007]

There can be many reasons. Firstly, there are some whitehat hackers and they will not abuse the victim, they will only attack to show the security waekness and show the owner of the service how weak security they got or they may attack to just show their power and knowledge however 600m is a lot for anyone to be tempted and take the money and run away. They other reason can be the police department, sometimes the hacker will take the money and even transfer everything but he is scared of getting caught by police so he won't take the risk. I believe the second reason can be the main reason mostly.

[zanezane]

~

Not sure if he has the moral compass to return the loot. He could have told the project themselves ahead of the hacking and shows the vulnerabilities of their application. With that there is no hacking at all and everything will not blown out of proportions. So to make the matter worst, the hackers could spent time in jail because that stealing. But he avoided it by returning everything and getting $500k bounty instead. So everything ends good, and lessons are learned here

That defeats the purpose of the hacker doing a white hat hacking, by telling them to be alert, the hack will not be realistic because I am sure that if they up the security at that time, they won't be able to keep it up everyday so they try to make it look like it's business as usual so it's much more realistic.

[Spack17]

This hacker must be an angel or something like that.    Joking aside, there are not only bad hackers, there are good ones also who we call them as white hat hackers. This hacker must be one of them. He/she just wanted to show the security leak of Poly Network. Normally, it would be really hard for a person to return this much money. But it looks like he really just likes doing his job like this.

[jaysabi]

~

Not sure if he has the moral compass to return the loot. He could have told the project themselves ahead of the hacking and shows the vulnerabilities of their application. With that there is no hacking at all and everything will not blown out of proportions. So to make the matter worst, the hackers could spent time in jail because that stealing. But he avoided it by returning everything and getting $500k bounty instead. So everything ends good, and lessons are learned here

That defeats the purpose of the hacker doing a white hat hacking, by telling them to be alert, the hack will not be realistic because I am sure that if they up the security at that time, they won't be able to keep it up everyday so they try to make it look like it's business as usual so it's much more realistic.

Also, there are innumerable stories of people alerting software companies to security flaws and the companies not taking them seriously or outright ignoring the reports.  But a highly publicized hack is something the company cannot ignore, so much more likely to get better and faster results to upgrade the security.

[Alanaz]

This has been a very crazy thing while I was in cryptocurrency and it really got the spotlight and news in almost all countries including mine.
$600 million is not a small amount and it takes time and money to hide it a bit extreme, besides that maybe they have experienced tremendous dizziness because to hack it requires extraordinary technique and genius besides that they also have to destroy all walls which limits being able to enjoy the results of their loot and this is very difficult for me to think about
despite all that, there is a lot of speculation and possible things that might happen, but even though they did bad things and still took some of the loot they still took the positive side, especially for platforms where there are still many things that need to be improved, especially in the security system so that they don't experienced the same thing for the second time.

[rosenbauer02]

You suddenly have everything you need in your life although until now you've lived a modest one. These $600M are hard as hell to keep concealed.

Usually, you can either return the sum and be rewarded a certain % for returning it or you can return the sum and be hired by the company's security team. This makes your millions legal income and so you have zero worries about losing your freedom for your actions.

I would do this if I am the hacker and put the talent in good use and don't have to worry anything. For the hacker, i think it would be imposible to launder it all without being detected or it might be that the hacker is afraid to get trace.

[Turbolinea]

If I was the boss of one of the biggest companies in the world, I would really like to work with hackers like this in my security department.    Because it is obvious that this person doesn't aim to just rob people or companies and go on his way. This person likes to discover the security vulnerability of a place. He can be a great help for a company to make its security system much stronger.

Or I'm thinking really wrong about this. 

[Rasa nanas]

I think the hack happens because it serves two purposes.
The first goal is money, if the goal is money the target is usually a banking site. the second goal is to measure how far the capabilities he has or how great the security of a site. This type of hacker will not take money or information from the site, even hackers will tell the weakness of the site. maybe the hacker we're talking about is the second type of hacker.

[Ibrahim60]

That Black Hat hacker firstly hacked the Crypto. And then return those and act like a White Hat hacker. I think that the hackers goal is not to stole the money. The hacker want to show himself and want to show his name in front of the world. Also he have the goal to work like a White Hat hacker and lead a life with honesty. I think that hacker thinking about the life after death. Also he think that this is a huge amount and he can face a huge problem for that if he want to use those money. After all he make a decision and return all the $600m crypto to the company and showing them their bugs.

[dezoel]

Honestly it could still be fear, at first I imagined it would be just his good heart or something but I honestly think that it could be fear. This is not just few million dollars, it is not smaller, it is 600 million dollars and when you steal that much money then it becomes a big trouble for you, not just getting it out because you will never getting it out to a normal bank and live with 600 million dollars, nobody in the world would allow you to do that, not even Deutsche bank who launders money from mafia, so that means that money is stuck with you and you can't spend all of it.

However I believe it is more than that, it is the fear of constantly looking behind your back to see if anyone is out to get you, that fear is not something anyone would want for a life time.

[wxa7115]

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.

The second theory that you propose is something that I thought as well and it could very well be the truth.

However I do not think the first scenario that you present is realistic, why would they go through the trouble of supposedly hack themselves only to return the money? This would make more sense if the money was never returned, in this case there will be some lingering suspicion about the developers and their possible involvement but with the money returned this does not make sense as they have damaged the image of their project in the process.

[Lanatsa]

Honestly it could still be fear, at first I imagined it would be just his good heart or something but I honestly think that it could be fear. This is not just few million dollars, it is not smaller, it is 600 million dollars and when you steal that much money then it becomes a big trouble for you, not just getting it out because you will never getting it out to a normal bank and live with 600 million dollars, nobody in the world would allow you to do that, not even Deutsche bank who launders money from mafia, so that means that money is stuck with you and you can't spend all of it.

However I believe it is more than that, it is the fear of constantly looking behind your back to see if anyone is out to get you, that fear is not something anyone would want for a life time.

Honestly,it wouldn't really be that a problem because you wont really be needing for it to be bulk or one time transaction if you do really intent to have lots of money and as a hacker then that wouldn't
really be a problem since he can sustain himself.

It is just he had done just ethical and not all hackers are really that bad and some of them are white-hat which do consider out on making good things if they do know that its for the own
good of its investors or people involved.

Not all things can be bought by money.

[add1ct3dd]

It's not every hacker in the world that is bad. There are the good ones as well, although there are now lots of bad ones. So, for a hacker to return up to $600 million, that means he's a really good person. People have a purpose why they do things, some of these hackers are just doing it for fun, also doing it for a really good purpose, while others are just some bad guys who are looking for those that will fall into their traps.

I have seen hackers who donated it's still in money to a foundation, a typical example of robinhood story I guess.  and  just like some comments here have pointed out, some of the hackers are just doing it to show companies where their security is lacking.

[shield132]

Not everyone likes to spend time in jail. Some people would say, give me millions and spend me in jail for ten years but some people just simply can spend a week in jail, it would make them insane and it also depends where the person has to be in.
Maybe all he needed was to become popular for a second and that's all. Otherwise, if he is a white hat, we would just reveal the bug. And if he is good at anonimity, he would keep the gains (millions) in his pocket. Seems he was able to hack but unable to hide his identity.

[Davidvictorson]

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.

Maybe that's what his plan after all and nothing more. Maybe he wanted to test his skills. Not everyone is after money. Some folks live a very modest life and are truly contented with what they already have. Besides  I believe there's  an intrinsic reward behind his action.