The virtual protocol corrects the error, and rewards the researcher for the discovery
An unexpected bug found in an audited smart contract called Virtual Protocol, a blockchain aimed at artificial intelligence agencies, has issued a timely fix and relaunched its bug bounty program.
On December 3, 2024, an anonymous security researcher contacted VirtualProtocol after discovering an error in one of GNU's audited contracts. Still, when he reported the issue, Jinu learned that the company did not have an active bug bounty program, which meant the discovery was not eligible for rewards.
Virtual Protocol acknowledges white hat error detection. Source: Gen
It shows the vulnerability of a white hat hacker
According to Genu, the Virtual Protocol team has also shut down a Discord group created solely to report the vulnerability. In the X thread, Genu said:
“The vulnerability is minor and could impact the virtualization ecosystem (but virtualizations probably don't care about security).”
Genu explained to Cointelegraph that the vulnerability is related to a lack of authentication when creating AgentTokens based on internal bond limits. “If exploited, this vulnerability would prevent the creation of agent tokens until the contract is fixed,” Jinu said.
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After the information was released on X, the virtual protocol found the gene and provided an immediate solution.
Source: Gen
Virtual Protocol is yet to determine the reward for error detection.
VirtualProtocol does not yet announce a bug bounty reward for GNU, despite its timely maintenance. In a message sent to the researcher, the company thanked Jinu for reporting the matter and apologized for the earlier misunderstanding.
“Hey Genu, we've confirmed the vulnerability and applied a patch below. Thank you for bringing this to our attention and we apologize for the miscommunication between support and yourself. We will review the severity of the issue internally and issue you a bug bounty soon, company representatives told the security researcher.
When asked about reward expectations, the genes did not know the total rewards for error detections. Jinu told Cointelegraph that he became interested in virtual protocols after a friend invested in a virtual token.
“I was looking at the code for about 30 minutes to see if it worked properly,” said Jinu before they discovered the bug.
Cointelegraph has reached out to Virtual Protocol for comment.
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