Ethereum Foundation announces $2 million 'hack-athon' to bolster protocol security

The ethereum Protocol Security (EPS) research team revealed plans for the hackathon at a July 8 event. ethereum.org/2024/07/08/attackathon” rel=”noopener nofollow noreferrer”>blog entryand has set a goal of raising over $2 million for the rewards fund. The Foundation has provided an initial sum of $500,000 to the fund and is asking the community to contribute the remaining $1.5 million by August 1.

During the Attackathon, security researchers will actively search for vulnerabilities in the protocol code, following specific rules set for the competition. The event will begin with an educational phase, which will include live technical tutorials and Attackathon Academy content to prepare participants to identify potential vulnerabilities.

“Specific rules set for the competition will be followed, and only impactful and rule-compliant reports will be rewarded. This phase focuses on real-time problem solving and applying the knowledge gained during the initial phase,” the ethereum Foundation stated.

Immunefi, a bug bounty platform known for its expertise in web3 security, will host the event. After the competition, Immunefi will evaluate the results and produce an official report detailing the discovered vulnerabilities and highlighting the most outstanding researchers.

The EPS team plans to introduce similar security challenges in each hard fork covering changes to the ethereum codebase. This initiative comes as ethereum prepares for its next major upgrade, the “Pectra” hard fork, which is planned for release in late 2024 or early 2025.