Key Takeaways
- Arbitrum gives a white-hat hacker 400 ETH for discovering a critical loophole in its code.
- The white-hacker is identified as Riptide on Twitter.
With the numerous reports of cybertheft and hacks, companies have become more appreciative of strong and unbreakable interfaces programmed by veteran developers. In today's news piece, Arbitrum gives a hacker 400 ETH for discovering a critical loophole in its code. Overtime, companies have come to be weary of hackers and the misfortune they can bring to them.
Thus, it is no surprise that on the 19th of September, Arbitrum chose to pay a sum of $560,000 (400 ETH) to a white-hat hacker who discovered a possible vulnerability in its code. The white-hacker is identified as Riptide on Twitter. Recently, he discovered vulnerabilities stacked in the smart contracts created in Solidity. According to Riptide, the multi-million dollar vulnerability has the potency to implicate anyone who intends to make a transaction from Ethereum to Arbitrum Nitro.
Read: Hackers try to sell NFT of Belarusian leader’s supposed stolen passport
Arbitrum Rewards Hacker With 400 ETH For Detecting a Critical $400M Vulnerability

Arbitrum is one of the most famous Layer 2 solutions for Ethereum. A few weeks ago, prior to the release, Riptide had carefully and exhaustively scanned the Arbitrum Nitro code, doing this to make sure they could see if the update was accomplished. When the upgrade was completed, Riptide discovered some lapses that served as a hindrance to the bridge's efficiency. Thus, Riptide decided to have a deeper observation and inspection. Through this, he found that the inbox sequencer had developed a sort of delay.
Then, he decided to run a rescan of the contract. It was at this point that he confirmed there was a problem-- the inbox sequencer bug permitted a dangerous vulnerability in the contract, and through this, any other hacker or Riptide could have access to siphon millions of dollars by rerouting incoming ETH deposits from the layer 1 to the layer 2 bridge into their personal purse (wallet) before it is discovered that such had happened.

Pushed by goodwill, Riptide chose to inform Arbitrum of the vulnerability, and he was commended with a reward which stirred up surprise in the eyes of many. The reward of 400 ETH is nothing to write home about compared to the $2 million reward Arbitrum gave as its optimal tier. When he got the reward, Riptide grumbled and said that the reward was not equivalent to the danger of the bug and its accompanying risk.
As an eye-opener, earlier this year, in March, Arbitrum suffered from a cybertheft orchestrated by a community of hackers who siphoned over 100 NFT from TreasureDAO, worth at least $1.4 million. What do you think about this? Do you think Arbitrum should have offered more rewards to the white-hat hacker? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.