CYBERSPACE — SpankChain, the blockchain-based payment ecosystem for the adult industry, confirmed that it has recovered all of the funds hacked during a security breach last weekend.
SpankChain, in a series of tweets, said that after CEO Ameen Soleimani spoke by telephone with an individual who stole $38,000 in ethereum (ETH) from the project’s smart contract, that person had agreed to return the hacked amount in full. The individual was able to reap a $9,000 “award” for the hack.
“We sent them back $5,000 as a reward along with the 5.5 ETH they used as seed capital for the attack,” SpankChain said in a tweet. “The attacker was also able to retrieve the 4,000 BOOTY that their hack immobilized. We purchased it back from them for $4,000.”
Earlier in the week, SpankChain officials took Spank.live offline to prevent any additional funds from being pilfered and then notified users about the breach, promising to reimburse for lost funds. Only about $9,000 consisted of customer funds.
In reaction to the hack, the company authored an article, titled, "We Got Spanked.”
In the article, SpankChain pledged that it would improve security protocol by “making sure to get multiple internal audits for any smart contract code we publish, as well as at least one professional external audit.”
Recovering funds in cryptocurrency hacks is rare. Other instances of token thefts at exchange platforms have rarely resulted in hackers giving back the currency. In recent months, cryptocurrency platforms Zaif and Bithumb both suffered hacks that cost the services millions.