Bitcoin Security Concerns

Why is it such a boom?

Bitcoin has been popular for quite some now. It used to be a quiet digital currency for a few people at first, because of its growth and potential it has been slowly been building up popularity, and with popularity comes the interest of the masses growing steady and slow. But this year the popularity and value grew rapidly and it has invited a lot of people to put their money in it.

Money and Security

When we talk about money we should be thinking how to secure it, and when it comes to security in this digital era, one must take into consideration the risk of cyber security. Phishing activities through imitation of website log in forms is one popular concern, however the cyber heist of a whole website/system is one big surprise where nowadays is one of the least concerns of the masses, but this time it was not the case.

Lately the marketplace Nicehash has been steadily becoming popular due to its user friendly interface, however things went downhill during the peak of its popularity, because the marketplace got hacked in a way that its clients’ earnings through mining were stolen after the system got compromised in which Nicehash has publicly confirmed. The exact number of bitcoins stolen are unknown since Nicehash has not publicly disclose it, however Reuters reported that it was around 4700 Bitcoins that went with the criminals.

Nicehash has not publicly disclosed how their systems were compromised, but they recommended users to change their passwords to mitigate risk. Good thing is they have already taken steps by reporting the incident to relevant authorities and law enforcement.

Suspect on the security breach

Since it is quite known that Microsoft and ESET has been cooperating with law agencies around the world to fight off a botnet known Gamarue. This botnet is also known as the Andromeda bot in the underground internet as the spread and proliferation of most malware and phishing techniques are done in that dark part of the internet. Aside from internal breaches and network related breaches, this time it could have been a botnet stealing information directly through keylogging that possibly could have been overlooked by the system or the people managing it.