The WLD Show

samczsun (Head of Security, Paradigm VC): The "Batman of Crypto" on How It Feels to be a White Hat Hacker | Will, Lee, & Andrew Learn Web3 #80

Episode Summary

Sam is a white hat hacker that has rescued hundreds of millions of dollars in the crypto ecosystem by responsibly disclosing vulnerabilities and publishing educational resources. In one of our previous podcast episodes with Dan Robinson - Dan called Sam the Batman of Crypto. Whenever there are large sums of money at stake in the crypto ecosystem, a bat signal is thrown up, and Sam comes in to help save the day. Sam is currently a Research Partner and the Head of Security at Paradigm - one the most high profile and active crypto native venture firms.

Episode Notes

Sam is a white hat hacker that has rescued hundreds of millions of dollars in the crypto ecosystem by responsibly disclosing vulnerabilities and publishing educational resources. In one of our previous podcast episodes with Dan Robinson - Dan called Sam the Batman of Crypto. Whenever there are large sums of money at stake in the crypto ecosystem, a bat signal is thrown up, and Sam comes in to help save the day.

Sam is currently a Research Partner and the Head of Security at Paradigm - one the most high profile and active crypto native venture firms.

Learn more about samczsun:

• samczsun’s Twitter: @samczsun
• samczsun’s Website: https://samczsun.com

In this episode we discuss:

• What is a white hat hacker?
• Why Sam chose to be a white hat hacker.
• The emotional journey of finding and resolving a vulnerability with millions at stake.
• Differences between white hat hacking in web3 vs. traditional web2
• Why Sam decided to join Paradigm
• Types of bugs in smart contracts:
  • Only exploitable via the owner of the protocol
  • Only exploitable if a hacker has a huge amount of capital
  • Worst bugs: No special permissions or capital
• The story of how Sam saved $9.6m for Lien Finance
  • Recruiting an Ocean's 11 team to escape the MEV Dark Forest
• How Sam found the SushiSwap vulnerability and saved $350MM
• Reverse engineering the $325MM Wormhole Hack
• Designing the hardest hacking competition in crypto: CTF (Capture the Flag)
  • How Sam put together a CTF that blew every crypto hacker’s minds
  • Exploiting an etherscan bug to announce CTF 2022

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