USA’s largest cryptocurrency Exchange Coinbase recently announced that it will award $250,000 to a white-hat hacker who discovers a significant vulnerability on the platform.
The hacker, who reached Coinbase on February 11 via Twitter with the username “Tree of Alpha”, announced that he had discovered an important vulnerability and wanted to meet with the Coinbase team as soon as possible.
After that, the cryptocurrency exchange team, which intervened quite quickly, reached the hacker and the platform was closed for trading for several hours. The company announced that the deficit was closed without any damage to customers’ funds.
Coinbase Clarifies What the Platform’s Vulnerability Is
In its statement, the cryptocurrency exchange made an assessment of what could happen if the gap was not closed and discovered by malicious people:
“Let’s say a person has 100 SHIB tokens in their first account and 0 Bitcoin in their second account. Due to the vulnerability, this person could make it appear as if he were selling 100 Bitcoins by modifying the code after selling the 100 SHIB tokens in his first account at the desired price. In other words, the hacker could make it appear as if the altcoin he wanted was offered for sale at the price he wanted in the Coinbase order book.”
However, there are also those who argue that since the vulnerability is in a part of the crypto money exchange that is still in beta tests, even if it is discovered by malicious people, its impact will not be very large.
The hacker confirmed on Twitter that the company will give him $250,000.
Coinbase has awarded a $250k bug bounty for the vulnerability.
Their official disclosure: https://t.co/ckyw03zks4
Full thread from my perspective later today.
— Tree of Alpha (@Tree_of_Alpha) February 19, 2022
Announcing that it will give the hacker a monetary reward of $250,000, the company has thus reached the highest amount paid to a white hat hacker.