Ethereum Foundation will launch a hackathon to find vulnerabilities in the blockchain with a prize fund of $2 million
Date: 2024-07-09 Author: Henry Casey Categories: BLOCKCHAIN
The Ethereum Foundation has announced the first hackathon in blockchain history, called Attackathon, which aims to identify vulnerabilities in the protocol code ahead of the upcoming Pectra hard fork. The event has a total prize pool of $2 million, and the event itself will last four weeks.
Organized by the Ethereum Protocol Security (EPS) research group, the event will begin with a technical introduction to the blockchain code for participants. This training will allow participants to better understand the potential vulnerabilities they will be looking for. Rewards will be given for discovering the most significant bugs, subject to the provision of appropriate reports.
Organization and sponsorship
During the hackathon, its organizing partner, the vulnerability scanning platform Immunefi, will collect the results and prepare a detailed report on the errors found. The Ethereum Foundation contributed $500,000 to the prize pool, and raised another $1.5 million from sponsors.
EPS plans to hold similar hackathons before each hard fork that involves changes to the code base. The next Pectra hard fork is expected in late 2024 or early 2025 and will include updates to Prague and Electra. Key changes will include the introduction of a social recovery feature that frees users from having to remember a 24-word private key, as well as the addition of smart contract functionality to wallets.
Examples from other blockchains
Previously, the Solana blockchain team, together with Immunefi, also launched a reward program for finding vulnerabilities in anticipation of the release of the Firedancer client-validator, which is designed to increase the throughput and stability of the network.
Attackathon will be the largest crowdsourced security audit of the Ethereum blockchain codebase. This event demonstrates the Ethereum Foundation's commitment to improving the security and reliability of its network by attracting talent from around the world.
