- A $9M hack on zkLend, a Starknet-based DeFi platform, led to halted withdrawals as the team investigates the security breach.
- To recover the stolen funds, zkLend introduced a “whitehat bounty,” offering the hacker 10% of stolen funds in exchange for returning 3,300 ETH worth of $8.6M.
- The platform guarantees no legal action if the stolen Ethereum is returned, focusing on asset recovery without prosecution.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) platform, zkLend which is built on Starknet disclosed a security breach on the 12th of February. The funds were claimed after hackers attacked and siphoned more than $9 million worth of ether from the platform’s money-market system. All withdrawal operations were stopped right away as the company worked on determining the method used by the attacker to infiltrate the platform.
zkLend’s Whitehat Bounty Offer
In other to get their money back, zkLend issued a statement on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter for a solution. The protocol implemented a ‘whitehat bounty,’ whereby the hacker would be paid back 10% in exchange for the retrieval of the funds. This bounty essentially equal to $900,000. In return, zkLend asks the hacker to repay 90% of the stolen amount which is approximately $8.6 million.
It’s still an odd mode of operation, however, zkLend underscored it won’t seek the Legal actions if the stolen Ethereum is returned. This ensured that in case the hacker complied with the conditions laid down, he would not be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The collections are the focus for the company so that they can be recovered without necessarily having to take the legal route.
Deadline Set for Response
However, zkLend decided to give the hacker a realistic amount of time to reply to their demands. Accordingly, the protocol mentioned that if it does not receive a response from an attacker by 00:00, February 14, 2025, additional actions should be taken. These may entail trailing the hacker and using the law to reclaim the lost money. This was evident showing that the company would not shy away from doing whatever it took to retrieve the stolen assets.
This attack has questioned the stability of the decentralized finance platforms that are relatively safe posing that the cryptocurrency field is vulnerable to distinct types of attacks even the them that are well-developed. Altogether, zkLend case blacket shows that the organisation has adopted a more aggressive and unconventional means of handling the cybercriminals. It is an indication that there is a push commonly known as whitehat for members of the cryptocurrency community to help in the recovery of stolen funds.
zkLend reminds the hacker to proceed with its guidelines as the investigation is still ongoing. This is a change in how DeFi platforms handle such a security breach, and the company had chosen to offer a reward instead of prosecuting the hacker immediately. Consequences of this scenario may determine the approach towards other cyber crimes within the crypto industry in the future.