Blockchain Firms Received Over 3,000 Susceptibility Reports in 2018, With $878,594 Being Awarded To Hacker in Bug Bounties This Year Alone

While diehard digital currency fans usually praise blockchain technology for its top-notch security, it turns out that the technology is not that perfect. There are lots of susceptibilities in the code. The vulnerabilities in the code have been an issue to many blockchain firms. In this year alone, blockchain firms have received nothing less than 3,000 susceptibility reports.

Blockchain Firms Awarded $878,504 in Bug Bounties

According to statistics from HackerOne – a breach disclosure platform – blockchain firms awarded $878,504 to hackers in bug bounties in 2018. In the first eight months of the year, the total amount of bug bounties awarded was $600,000.

The Top Three Blockchain Firms with the Bounty Rewards

The creator of EOS – Block.one accounts for over 60% of the total bounties awarded in 2018. This sums to about $534,500 – only by one firm. However, this includes bounties from before 2018. The second on the list after Block.one is Coinbase. Coinbase awarded a total of $290,381 in bug bounty rewards.

After Coinbase, the next on the list is Tron – one of the most active blockchain projects in the crypto space. Tron awarded a total of $76,200 in bug bounty rewards. These are the top three blockchain firms with the highest bounty rewards in 2018.

Bitcoin (BTC) Price Today – BTC / USD

NamePrice24H %
bitcoin
Bitcoin(BTC)
$0.00-0.15%

While Coinbase – a very popular digital currency trading platform – came second, the firm has been running a disclosure program since 2014. Whereas, Block.one started its disclosure program for EOS in May. Shortly after the launch of the program, one hacker pocketed $120,000 from Block.one in but bounties in less than one week.

Almost four percent of the bounties awarded on HackerOne this year were from digital currency and blockchain firms, according to a spokesperson of HackerOne. Still, it appears that blockchain firms reward hackers a bit better than other industries.

According to the spokesperson, the average bounty for all blockchain firms this year was $1,490, this is more than the average of the Q4 platform of about $900. He also added that one of the highest paid digital currency hackers made 7X the median software engineer salary.

The Vulnerability in Blockchain Is a More Serious Issue than It Seems

HackerOne said that the total number of blockchain firms on its platform at the moment are 64. For context, there are over 2,000 digital currency firms out there. This means that the actual number of susceptibility is likely much higher.

Vulnerabilities were also found in Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) this year by researchers. Earlier this year, reports have it that there were over 34,000 susceptible smart contracts in project based on the blockchain of Ethereum alone. As a result of the immutability aspects, the susceptibility of the blockchain is much more severe than other centralized technologies. This is also because there is no way to reverse transactions, except for the case of EOS, which has inbuilt backdoors.

Hence, there are risks involved in blockchain technology, and you might want to consider those risks if you are banking on blockchain to keep your money safe. Meanwhile, the $200,000 bounty of Augur for critical issues is still up for hacker to grab. No hacker has claimed the money yet.

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.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.