KiloEx Exploiter Sends Back Funds After $750K Bounty

KiloEx launched a $750,000 bug bounty program with a requirement for the thief to return 90% of the money but made the payment before the deadline expired.

After last month’s most substantial DeFi breach left thousands of cryptocurrency fans shaken and struggling to understand how the funds were so easily stolen, one hacker involved in the heist has returned some of the assets to the platform.

According to blockchain security firm PeckShieldAlert, the unknown perpetrator then sent over $5.5 million worth of cryptocurrency back to KiloEx just four days after a sophisticated cyber attack rocked the platform.

KiloEx Attributes Breach to Price Oracle Vulnerability

As the company revealed on April 18 in a post on X, crypto assets addressed previously to the attacker were sent back to the company and confirmed.

On April 15, KiloEx, which had suspended operations, said that the breach was caused by a ‘price Oracle issue’ believed to be linked to a vulnerability.

The main exploits of such kind consist of compromising the external data supply from which smart contracts obtain values for assets, leading to tremendous discrepancies in the financial balance.

In an attempt to curb the crisis and recover user funds as fast as possible, KiloEx offered the hacker a ‘white hat’ bounty of $750,000 (roughly 10% of the stolen funds) if 90% of the assets were returned.

KiloEx Partners With Experts to Track Attacker

The amount returned by the attacker was only part of the $5.5 million sum, but the community of KiloEx called this partial triumph. The bounty was not mentioned by the platform as they’ve yet to comment whether they’ll still follow through under the new terms.

Meanwhile, there is ongoing effort to locate the perpetrator or perpetrators behind the attack. In light of this, KiloEx is cooperating with top law enforcing agencies, as well as top cybersecurity firms such as Seal-911, SlowMist and Sherlock, to identify the attacker’s digital footprint.

While the return of funds hasn’t been completely unprecedented in the decentralized finance space, few hackers are white hat enough to snowball themselves, either reconsidering their ethics or facing mounting legal pressure.

However, the incident serves to highlight the persisting danger for DeFi ventures and the essential rope behind smart contract safety and cost oracle honesty. As yet, KiloEx has not stated the date it will restart operations.