Bitcoin is booming in the market and its transactions are increasing rapidly. Nowadays, Bitcoin has become the favorite currency of hackers. That is demanded by hackers when they make a request for money. But not only since the bitcoin, more and more investment funds, attracted by the bullish prospects of its course, are interested. And many online ecommerce sites are starting to charge products and services in this cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin remains even today, highly coveted by hackers. This is evidenced by the numerous computer scams found in recent months on sites offering to buy or sell this cryptocurrency. The robberies of bitcoin holders usually occur when they convert their virtual fortune into hard cash.
High-profile cases are still rare. “Owners of bitcoin generally like discretion and are reluctant to make themselves known even when they have been scammed”, says Caroline Laverdet, a lawyer specializing in the law of new technologies.
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Beware of Scams:
The most famous case dates back to February 2014, when the Mt. Gox site (pronounced Mount Gox), the second largest cryptocurrency broker after BTC China (which suspended its activities, by order of Beijing, in September 2017), goes bankrupt after hackers have diverted more than 650,000 bitcoins. The swindle undermines the confidence of the operators for a few days and leads to a 20% fall in the price of the virtual currency. But bitcoin is not slow to start again. Since then, “digital breaks” have multiplied.
In August and October 2016, nearly 120,000 bitcoins were stolen from private individuals by hackers, who managed to connect to the Bitfinex platform via a security breach. In April 2017, Yapizon, a South Korean cryptocurrency exchange, filed a complaint about the theft of 3,800 bitcoins (estimated at $ 5 million at the time of the “breakage”).
Increasing Amounts:
In the following September 2017, the US group FireEye cybersecurity reveals that hackers from North Korea rage on several platforms offering to buy and sell cryptocurrencies. The amount of loot is in millions of dollars.
In November 2017, the Tether Group, which originated the USDT cryptocurrency, filed a complaint about an online robbery of more than $ 31 million in its virtual wallets. Latest: hacking NiceHash, a platform for exchange and “mining” of bitcoins on December 6 2017, has been robbed of 4,700 bitcoins for an estimated amount of more than $ 68 million.
How does Crypto Scams Work?
If blockchain technology secures transactions in bitcoins, how can this currency be attacked today? Cybersecurity group Kaspersky explains it simply. Its researchers have identified on the Web several malware especially dedicated to the cryptocurrency hijacking.
Nicknamed “crypto-stealers”, these malicious programs target virtual money transfer systems. If a user wants to make a bitcoin payment from one account to another, he/she must know the identifier of the recipient’s wallet (a separate number consisting of several digits). Since users often prefer to copy and paste this number instead of copying it to the “destination address” field of the software used for the transaction, simply monitor the infected machine’s clipboard for this valuable information.
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However, a “Trojan horse” replaces the address of the user’s wallet by that of the creator (or the beneficiary) of the malware. The victim thus transfers, directly and without his knowledge, his money to his thieves. Only the most attentive users are aware of this sleight of hand. A few milliseconds are enough to substitute the code of the recipient account. The majority of crypto-currencies use addresses beginning in the same way and having the same number of characters.
