Polygon upgrade fixes bug that put $24 billion MATIC at risk

Ethereum-based layer-two scaling network Polygon has quietly fixed a bug that put its nearly $24 billion worth of MATIC at risk.

According to a Polygon blog post on Dec. 29, two white hat hackers first noticed the network’s Proof-of-Stake (PoS) Genesis contract on Dec. 3 and 4 via blockchain security and bug bounty hosting platform Immunefi. "Critical" vulnerabilities.

Everything you need to know about the latest Polygon Network update.

✅A security partner discovered a vulnerability

✅ Immediately rolled out fixes

✅Validators upgrade the network

✅No material harm to protocol/end user

✅White hat got the bounty

— Polygon | $MATIC (@0xPolygon) December 29, 2021

The breach put more than 9.27 billion MATICs at risk, worth roughly $23.6 billion at the time of writing, a figure that represents the vast majority of the coin’s total supply of 10 billion.

Polygon noted that the vulnerability was resolved at block #22156660 at around 7:27AM UTC on December 5th through an "Emergency Bor Upgrade" to the mainnet. The network noted that a “malicious hacker” managed to steal 801,601 MATIC ($2.04 million) before the bug was resolved. This blog post reads:

Polygon's core team worked with Immunefi's team of experts, and a fix was rolled out immediately. Validators and the entire node community were notified, and they supported the core developers, upgrading 80% of the network within 24 hours without interruption. "

According to Polygon, the issue was fixed behind closed doors due to the "silent patches" policy introduced by the Go Ethereum (Geth) team in November 2020. According to the guidelines, projects or developers report critical bug fixes 4 to 8 weeks after going live to avoid the risk of being exploited while patching.

According to Immunefi, white hat hacker "Leon Spacewalker" who was the first to report the security breach on Dec. Two unnamed hackers will receive 500,000 MATIC ($1.27 million) from Polygon.

Polygon co-founder Jaynti Kanani highlighted the network’s ability to quickly address critical vulnerabilities, stating in a blog post:

"Importantly, this was a test of our cyber resilience and our ability to act decisively under pressure. Given what was at stake, I think our teams made the best decision under the circumstances."

Despite a downturn for major crypto assets this month, MATIC has seen its price rise 35.1 percent to $2.45 over the past 30 days, according to data from Coingecko.

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