Investing in crypto-currencies has always been a gamble. Since Bitcoin did so well in 2017, similar prophesies have been indicated for 2018. However, clients have more to worry about than bitcoins becoming worthless. Sometimes, hackers initiate extremely devastating cyber attacks, leading to losses of millions of dollars and investments.
Unknown crooks hacked into Coincheck and stole 530 million of dollars
Last week ended in a disaster for a Japanese cryptocurrency exchange called Coincheck. Security researchers have dared to call this hack one of the biggest thefts of all time. This label is not surprising as $530 million worth of digital money does not disappear everyday.
The chief operator of Coincheck Yusuke Otsuka has expressed deep apologies for the inconveniences that the hack has caused for approximately 260,000 users. The young founders of this cryptocurrency exchange held a press conference and struggled to get through it successfully.
Specialists like Jeff McDonald has indicated this hack as a disastrous event. Not to mention that the company will have to provide some sort of compensations for its clients. McDonald said that the company basically lost billion dollars worth of XEM.
The good news is that using cryptocurrencies is not as easy as using real dollars bills. The NEM foundation had decided to tag the stolen coins with specific serial numbers. If hackers try to make deposits with the stolen money, that process could be stopped.
Coincheck hacked due to poor security
You would expect that a billion dollars worth of coins would be properly protected from theft. However, Coincheck admitted that the digital money was stored in a “hot wallet”. This means that it was connected to the Internet. Because of this, hackers were able to get access and steal all of the wallet’s content. Wonderfull news for crooks, devastating truth for the Coincheck exchange and its clients.
The hack had some negative influence on the cryptocurrency markets as well: worth of bitcoins dropped 5%. The Tokyo-based company had reported the incident to law enforcement authorities and hopes that further investigations will be fruitful.
It is evident that occasional hacks and leaks are unavoidable. However, if you have almost a half billion dollars, you should probably protect it with all you have got. This embarrassing incident could discourage people from becoming involved with cryptocurrencies.
We cannot encourage nor discourage you from buying bitcoins or other type of digital money. It all depends on your personal opinion on the matter. If you are willing to take a risk, it might pay-off. On the other hand, it could also be a big flop.
Source: digitaltrends.com.
