In several hacking incidents that took place recently, Bitcoin and Ethereum websites were hacked and millions of dollars in cryptocurrency were stolen by the hackers. These are one of the biggest hacking incidents, as the amount was stolen is huge.
Incidents when Bitcoin and Ethereum websites were hacked
- The Bithumb hacking incident:
In one of the incidents that took place at the beginning on July, Bithumb was hacked. During this cyber attack, hackers compromised several user accounts and stole millions South Korean Won. One of the victims claimed that 10 Million Won were stolen from his account; while the other claimed 1.2 billion Won were stolen. Apart from the digital currencies, hackers were able to steal the personal information of 31,800 Bithumb website users, which included their names, email addresses, and mobile numbers.
Bithumb is South Korea’s largest Cryptocurrency exchange for Bitcoin and Ethereum. Bithumb exchanges nearly 10% of global bitcoin currency and 20% of global ether cryptocurrency in South Korean currency, the Won. This makes Bithumb the 4th largest Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange.
- The Initial Coin Offering (ICO) hacking incidents:
The very recent and 4th largest Bitcoin and Ethereum hacking incident saw hackers attacking Veritaseum’s Initial Coin Offering (ICO). The hacker stole nearly $8.4 Million worth of Ethereum cryptocurrency. This is the second time when an Ethereum Initial Coin Offering (ICO) was hit with a cyber attack.
In the previous cyber attack that took place just a week prior to this incident; $7 Million worth of Ether tokens were stolen during the hack of Israeli startup CoinDash’s ICO.
- The wallet accounts hacking incidents:
Just before the ICO cyber attacks, a group of hackers successfully stole nearly $32 Million worth of Ethereum from wallet accounts. The hackers exploited a critical vulnerability in Parity’s Ethereum Wallet software. After the exploitation, the hackers first stole $1 Million worth of Bitcoin and Ethereum cryptocurrency. Apparently, the same stealing method was used for stealing $32 million worth Ethereum (153,000 ether tokens).
All these incidences are really shocking for the users who use cryptocurrencies for their transactions. Ironically, Bitcoin and Ethereum cryptocurrencies are often considered the safest currencies in the world. However, in multiple incidents, hackers were able to steal even these currencies as well as account holders’ personal details.
Most of the Bitcoin and Ethereum cryptocurrency exchanges started the investigation immediately. These incidents have alerted all cryptocurrency exchanges to harden their security practices.
