SpankChain Rewards Anonymous Hacker with $9k After He Returns Stolen Ethereum (ETH) Worth $40k

ethereum

Recently, Ethereum (ETH) worth about $40k was stolen by a hacker on SpankChain. SpankChain is an adult entertainment startup. Fortunately, according to the announcement of the startup on Oct. 11, the hacker has returned the stolen digital currency.

According to the tweets on the official Twitter account of the firm, the CEO of SpankChain came to an agreement with the anonymous hacker after a phone conversation.

After Ameen Soleimani, the CEO of SpankChain, spoke with the hacker on the phone, the hacker gave him the private key to address that holds the stolen ether. He also helped the firm to recover funds worth a few thousands of dollar that was immobilized in the course of the attack.

SpankChain Rewards the Hacker with $5k and 5.5 ETH for Returning the Stolen ETH

In compensation for the good deeds of the hacker, the adult entertainment startup gave the hacker a bounty reward. The firm gave the hacker $5k, bought the formerly frozen coins back from them for $4k. The firm also sent back the 5.5 ether the hacker used during the launch of the attack in the first place.

One of the smart contracts of SpankChain has a susceptibility known as “reentrancy.” According to the report, the hacker successfully exploited this bug last Saturday. The bug is similar to the one that caused the downfall of The DAO. The bug enabled the hacker to trick the smart contract of the firm into letting them withdraw funds even after the payment channel balance of the hacker is down to zero.

The attacker initially stole Ethereum (ETH) worth about $38k. The hacker later immobilized ICO tokens of SpankChain worth $4k. The majority of the stolen funds belonged to the firm. The firm had initially planned a $9k airdrop to compensate those that lost their tokens during the attack. Rather, the firm gave the hacker $9k.

Emin Gun Sirer Warns about Reentrancy Attacks on Ethereum Smart Contracts

The firm initially planned on spending $50k to audit the smart contracts before it will be deployed on the Mainnet. Nevertheless, SpankChain said that the peripheral cost of forging ahead with the audit far exceeded the savings. While this issue was taken care of amicably, Emin Gun Sirer – a computer scientist – has warned that a lot of smart contracts deployed on the Ethereum are susceptible to reentrancy attacks. He said subsequent attacks might not be as friendly as this.

Ethereum (ETH) Constantinople Upgrade Will Go Live in November

Recently, the delay of Constantinople was announced. Constantinople is a system-wide upgrade that open source developers have been working on. The launch of this hard fork has been delayed a couple of times.

However, its launch has been scheduled for November, irrespective of the delayed test release. The Foundation has not fixed a release date yet. But they say it will go live in November no matter what.

Ethereum (ETH) Price Today – ETH / USD

NamePrice24H %
ethereum
Ethereum(ETH)
$0.00-2.08%

At the time of writing, Ethereum (ETH) is changing hands at $199. This comes after an increase of about four percent over the past twenty-four hours. The current market cap of the digital currency is $20.43 billion. Also, it’s trading volume over the past twenty-four hours is $1.32 billion.

Princess Ogono is a writer, lawyer and fitness enthusiast. She believes cryptocurrencies are the future. When she's not writing, she spends time with her adorable cat, Ginger and works out often.

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