Getting even with hackers

The concept of hacking is often misunderstood by many. It is usually associated with crime and negativity. The layman would regard anyone who professes himself or herself a hacker as a criminal or an enemy of the public. This isn't always the case. The choice of the word 'always' is by no means a mistake. It was chosen because not all hackers are criminals or inclined towards evil.

There are those who use their hacking skills for evil and others who use it for the betterment of the society i.e. good. The good ones are termed 'White hat hackers' or 'Ethical hackers' while the not so good or evil ones are referred to as 'Black hat hackers'. However more often than not it is the black hat hackers who are in the news for their malicious exploits which tend to negatively paint the entire community of hackers in bad light.

It is they that the community need to get even with and teach them a lesson or two. Probably such lessons will compel them to have a rethink and literally change their headgear from black to white and benefit the community instead of causing harm.

Recently, the CEO of Aurora Labs narrated in a Twitter thread how a black hat hacker had attempted to compromise the Rainbow bridge. He narrated that the said exploit was attempted on a Saturday. The hacker had probably hoped that being on a weekend, the security systems would be more vulnerable to being penetrated as the number of people monitoring them would be less than usual.

The individual presented a falsified NEAR block to the Rainbow bridge and made the required deposit in ETH. Unfortunately for the hacker his attempt failed as it was foiled within 31 seconds of it being initiated. The automated countermeasures put in place against malicious transactions triumphed and decimated the exploit in good time.

Apart from the failure of the hack, the hacker lost his deposit of 5 ETH further compounding his losses from the misadventure. It is always a thing of joy when one hears news such as this of good prevailing over evil. It is only hoped that this particular hacker will cease and desist , however most times they love to learn the hard way and eventually end up doing jail time when the long arm of the law catches up with them.

The CEO also left a message directed at the attacker urging him to put his skills to positive use by engaging in bug bounties to solve problems to benefit the community instead of engaging in illicit activity to steal and launder funds.

This is not the first time that hackers or scammers are have bean dealt with by the community. Sometime in the month of May, the Solana community teamed up to recover 25 stolen NFTs. This was done by luring in the hacker to list the stolen NFTs for sale by making an offer that was simply irresistible.

The offer was an increase in royalty to 98% as opposed to the usual 5% for the stolen NFTs. The community was able to buy back and retrieve all the stolen NFTs within a few days. The retrieved items were thereafter returned to the legitimate owners.