In the nick of time, a gigantic crisis for the major US crypto exchange Coinbase was recently prevented. A “white hat hacker”, a hacker with good intentions, came across a major vulnerability and instead of exploiting it, he notified the team at Coinbase. Coinbase was able to fix the vulnerability in no time and publicly thanked the hacker.
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**Coinbase white hat hacker**
The hacker in question is known on social media as “Tree of Alpha. On Twitter a few days ago, he let it be known that he wanted to get in touch with Coinbase’s dev team urgently. As it turns out, he was on to something important.
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Just a few hours later, Coinbase announced that they had temporarily suspended all trading on the Advanced Trading platform under the guise of “technical problems. Moments later, the problems had been resolved, Tree of Alpha itself confirmed.
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According to Tree of Alpha, the problems could have potentially caused a real catastrophe for Coinbase and the rest of the crypto industry. Indeed, the vulnerability allowed malicious parties to manipulate all Coinbase order books with fake prices. Of course, the consequences of such an exploit would have been huge, not only for the crypto exchange, but for the overall crypto industry.
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**Coinbase CEO Brian Armstong**
Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, has since publicly thanked Tree of Alpha. According to him, the hacker’s willingness to warn Coinbase instead of exploiting the vulnerability himself once again shows what the crypto community really stands for. It is unknown if Tree of Alpha received a reward for his achievements. This is often the case within the crypto industry.
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At least Coinbase can count itself lucky that it ended with a bang.
I’m still waiting for his tweet with a detailed write up on what the vulnerability was.
TreeofAlpha has also discovered the only way to get ahold of Coinbase Customer Service
At least nice of Coinbase to give him credit in finding the vulnerability
White hats are so hot right now
I find it funny he had to go on Twitter to get in touch with Coinbase customer support. Coinbase get your shit together. It benefits everyone.
Reward him with 1 BTC
Probably not the only vulnerability…but let’s hope so
A coinbase hack and a russian invasion all in one week would have caused a dip to remember.
So in order to reach Coinbase customer service all you have to do is find a giant security flaw? That seems simpler than submitting a ticket. Lol
If all he got was a thanks on Twitter he might think twice about only warning them n3xt time lol..He should have got some bounty reward.
The white hat who found an exploit on optimism got a 2 million bounty. This guy should get at least 5x that for saving billions
Hire that bitch lmao
people really don’t understand how vulnerable exchanges are, even more than tokens. Especially with the work that is being put in to crack them by many users, and especially since their security doesn’t rely on a blockchain, but a standart Fintech site security…
I know that even when I use tokens to trade, DeFi or even NFT games like Kitty Kart or Axie, that I’m safer than when I’m using a website like Coinbase or crypto.com. Those sites are laden with risk, and they should incorporate blockchain tech to secure it.
What’s weird was all he got was a thank you and a thumbs up. Come on, at least give him a few BTC for saving your ass and incentiving others
Tree of Alpha beating a Russian hacker riding a John Deere tractor (trying to blend in)
Kind of scary. But also kudos to both Tree of Alpha (especially lol) and Coinbase team for getting that taken care of.
Tree of alpha you beautiful, we love you!
I still don’t like the idea that our finances were spared because one random guy decided to be nice/benevolent
Gotta love feel good stories
Coinbase being such a big exchange is a systemic risk.
Wow, I’ve never tipped a moon before. But I’d consider sending a couple to this guy / gal. Well done white hat hacker. My hat is off to you.
This is really great news. I love white hackers. ❤️ Thanks for your service.
Thanks dude.
This is a good reason why Coinbase shouldn’t be locking people’s ETH until ETH2.0 comes out
Cheers to this gentleman
I hope they reward him for that. He didn’t have to do anything and could’ve exploited the vulnerability himself. Reward him dammit