In February, brothers Mohammed & Benamar M. took advantage of the vulnerability of the Platypus DeFi protocol running on the Avalanche blockchain. The attackers used an instant loan attack, which resulted in Platypus losing $8.5 million. Due to this incident, the platform was forced to suspend all operations.
Later, with the assistance of the security service of the world’s largest crypto exchange Binance, investigators and independent cryptocurrency analysts, the hackers were found. In February, French police detained the brothers and charged them with burglary.
At a court hearing in Paris, which took place on October 26, the brothers admitted to stealing crypto assets, but positioned themselves as “ethical hackers.” They expressed their willingness to return the embezzled funds in exchange for 10% of the stolen amount. This will be considered a reward for discovering a vulnerability in the protocol, the defendants said.
Recently, the court agreed with the arguments of the accused and dropped all criminal charges against the brothers. The French court’s decision may set a precedent for other legal cases related to hacking of DeFi projects. This speaks to the need to improve security in DeFi ecosystems and take into account the legal nuances associated with the theft of digital assets.
In October, the Platypus protocol again suffered from a hacker attack, losing about $2.2 million. However, after negotiations with the hacker, the Platypus team managed to return 90% of the stolen crypto assets.
Source: Bits

I am an experienced journalist, writer, and editor with a passion for finance and business news. I have been working in the journalism field for over 6 years, covering a variety of topics from finance to technology. As an author at World Stock Market, I specialize in finance business-related topics.