Do you have bitcoins? Do you store them in computers that are connected to the internet? If your answer to these two questions is yes, then you may want to reconsider what you are doing.
Bitcoin is the world’s most popular digital currency right now, and it’s controlled by a vast collection of computers spread across the internet. It uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority or banks; managing transactions and the issuing of bitcoins is carried out collectively by the network.
Bitcoin is open-source; its design is public, nobody owns or controls Bitcoin and everyone can take part. Through many of its unique properties, Bitcoin allows exciting uses that could not be covered by any previous payment system.
The unique feature of bitcoin is also the main reason why it is vulnerable. A company that used to store bitcoins in digital wallets for people across the globe was just hacked. The robbers managed to steal more than a million dollars’ worth of the cryptographically-signed currency.
Inputs.io appeared to be the ideal company to store bitcoins just a few days ago. They not only offered bitcoin wallets, they also tried to mix the wallets up in order to protect the identity of their clients whose coins they stored. They sped up bitcoin transactions for their preferred customers and even spared them from the tiny transaction fees that are typically charged on the bitcoin network.
The problem is that the clients should put their total trust on the hands of inputs.io and, of course, their internet-connected computers. Now, everyone knows that this is a bad idea.
The site was compromised on 23 October and again on 26 October of this year. The actual amount that the hackers manage to steal was estimated at around 4,100 bitcoins or US$ 1.2 million total for both attacks. The company waited a few weeks before notifying their customers of the incident, which only affects certain users.
Worse, inputs.io does not have the funds to pay back everything that was stolen. The company’s official statement says that they going to issue partial refunds.
TradeFortress, who is considered one of the owners of inputs.io, said that this was a social engineering attack meant to get access to the site’s systems on cloud-hosting provider Linode. "The attack was done through compromising a chain of email accounts which eventually allowed the attacker to reset the password for the the Linode server," he said.
Bitcoin is the world’s most popular digital currency right now, and it’s controlled by a vast collection of computers spread across the internet. It uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority or banks; managing transactions and the issuing of bitcoins is carried out collectively by the network.
Bitcoin is open-source; its design is public, nobody owns or controls Bitcoin and everyone can take part. Through many of its unique properties, Bitcoin allows exciting uses that could not be covered by any previous payment system.
The unique feature of bitcoin is also the main reason why it is vulnerable. A company that used to store bitcoins in digital wallets for people across the globe was just hacked. The robbers managed to steal more than a million dollars’ worth of the cryptographically-signed currency.
Inputs.io appeared to be the ideal company to store bitcoins just a few days ago. They not only offered bitcoin wallets, they also tried to mix the wallets up in order to protect the identity of their clients whose coins they stored. They sped up bitcoin transactions for their preferred customers and even spared them from the tiny transaction fees that are typically charged on the bitcoin network.
The problem is that the clients should put their total trust on the hands of inputs.io and, of course, their internet-connected computers. Now, everyone knows that this is a bad idea.
The site was compromised on 23 October and again on 26 October of this year. The actual amount that the hackers manage to steal was estimated at around 4,100 bitcoins or US$ 1.2 million total for both attacks. The company waited a few weeks before notifying their customers of the incident, which only affects certain users.
Worse, inputs.io does not have the funds to pay back everything that was stolen. The company’s official statement says that they going to issue partial refunds.
TradeFortress, who is considered one of the owners of inputs.io, said that this was a social engineering attack meant to get access to the site’s systems on cloud-hosting provider Linode. "The attack was done through compromising a chain of email accounts which eventually allowed the attacker to reset the password for the the Linode server," he said.
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