Crypto glossary
White hat hacker
A white hat hacker is a security researcher who finds and discloses vulnerabilities, or rescues funds at risk, instead of exploiting them for personal gain.
In crypto, white hats audit smart contracts, hunt for bugs in wallets and node software and report what they find privately to the team, usually through a bug bounty program. When a live attack is already under way, some go further and run the same exploit first, moving the vulnerable funds to a safe address so they can be returned once the protocol is patched.
That rescue role is unusual compared with traditional security, because blockchain transactions are final and a few minutes can decide whether a treasury survives. To give rescuers legal cover, groups such as the Security Alliance (SEAL) published safe harbor frameworks that protocols can adopt in advance, defining where rescued funds must go and what reward the white hat may keep.
The label is not always clean. Some attackers return funds only after being identified and then call themselves white hats, and acting without a prior agreement can still expose a researcher to civil or criminal claims depending on the jurisdiction.
Example
During an active exploit on a lending protocol, a researcher front-runs the attacker, moves the remaining pool funds to the team's recovery multisig and receives a 10% reward under the protocol's published safe harbor terms.
Related terms
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