A white hat hacker known as “Tree of Alpha” recently saved Coinbase’s Advanced Trading platform from a major problem. After uncovering a vulnerability on the trading platform that would have allowed third-party attackers to push all Coinbase order books to arbitrary prices, the hacker known as “Tree of Alpha” called out Coinbase and its CEO, Brian Armstrong.
Coinbase confirmed a few hours after the tweet that trading on its Advanced Trading platform had been suspended due to technical issues. Two hours later, the exchange re-enabled the full service for retail advance trading, with users being able to resume their orders. Tree of Alpha confirmed it with a screenshot of the patched exploit.
Coinbase CEO, Brian Armstrong thanked Tree of Alpha for helping out the Coinbase team, stating how he “loves how the crypto community helps each other out!”
White Hat Hackers to the Rescue
While it doesn’t seem frequent that these types of collaborations occur, they do still happen. Like “Tree of Alpha,” several other white hackers have also helped prevent crypto companies like Coinbase from suffering potential threats, protecting the platform and consumers from major losses.
Last year, a hacker stole $612 million assets from Poly Network, but eventually returned almost all the funds after weeks of dialogue. The hackers claimed they did it to teach the network a lesson.
While the Poly Network hackers‘ status as “white hatters” remains questionable, there have been other hackers who have proven that they are operating strictly with good intentions. For example, back in August 2021, Paradigm security researcher who is known as @samczun on Twitter, helped fix a $350 million flaw for SushiSwap DEX.
White hat hackers have played prominent roles in keeping crypto space clean, open, and trustworthy in recent times. The growing popularity of white hats has also led to more crypto firms like Binance, Kraken, EOS, and Ethereum Foundation, offering bounties for potential flaws discovered on their platform.
