SEC554: Blockchain and Smart Contract Security - How to lose $280 million with a single line of code

  • Thursday, 05 Nov 2020 3:30PM EST (05 Nov 2020 20:30 UTC)
  • Speaker: Steven Walbroehl

Blockchain and Smart Contracts are both emerging technologies filled with opportunity and innovation. However, like most new technology, it introduces new and unforeseen security vulnerabilities. At the end of 2017, one of the most infamous of these security failures was the 'Parity Bug ' in which a user 'accidently ' exploited the code of a multi-signature wallet. This small code flaw ended up losing users of the wallet over $280 million USD.

In this Webcast, Steven Walbroehl, Chief Information Security Officer at Halborn Inc, will discuss the series of events around the Parity Bug, and talk about how it happened, how it was exploited, and how $280 million dollars could be 'locked ' forever. Then, after diving into some of the solidity code, he will perform a live demonstration, ethically exploiting similar vulnerabilities found in Ethereum smart contracts that are deployed on the blockchain.