Ethereum
Ethereum and Immunefi Launch “Attackathon” with Goal of Raising $2 Million in Rewards
The crowdsourced security audit competition will reward security researchers who identify vulnerabilities in Ethereum’s code.
The Ethereum Foundation funded the bounty pool with $500,000, but eventually aims to raise more than $2 million from contributors.
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Posted on July 9, 2024 at 5:31 am EST.
The Ethereum Foundation and bug bounty platform Immunefi have teamed up to launch a security audit competition called “Attackathon” that aims to be “the largest crowdsourced security audit.”
In a blog job On July 8, the Ethereum Foundation said the four-week event would be open to developers and projects, who are invited to participate in a time-limited audit to look for vulnerabilities in the Ethereum protocol code.
The Ethereum Foundation has seeded the reward pool with an initial $500,000, but aims to raise over $2 million from contributors by August 1, when the final pool will be locked.
The sponsored pool will be deposited directly into the Attackathon Vault on Immunefi, which was designed to transparently display a program’s fund allocation and streamline the payment process between projects and security researchers, according to a press release.
Fredrik Svantes, Ethereum’s lead protocol security researcher, said the team was “excited to launch the first audit competition targeting the protocol itself” as part of its efforts to further secure the protocol.
“The most successful white hats will see their skills recognized in front of the entire Ethereum community,” said Immunotherapy on X.
The hackathon is the second to be announced by Immunefi this week — the platform is facilitating a $1 million bug bounty reward pool for developers who identify bugs in a new Solana validator client built by Jump Crypto.
The largest bug bounty ever recorded was a $15 million reward from LayerZero last May. The cross-chain messaging protocol also partnered with Immunefi to set it up, with payouts for critical vulnerabilities earning developers a minimum of $250,000 and a maximum of $15 million for finding bugs on “Group 1” chains such as Ethereum and Avalanche.
So far, Immunefi complaints paid out more than $100 million in bounties and prevented $25 billion in damages from hacking.