Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin => Bitcoin Discussion => Topic started by: Berend de Boer on September 13, 2012, 11:55:47 PM



Title: Real banks are safe, right? And don't suffer attacks like bitcoin?
Post by: Berend de Boer on September 13, 2012, 11:55:47 PM
Just stumbled upon this article describing a hack where between $75 million and $2.5 billion was lost (http://www.computer.org/csdl/mags/co/2012/08/mco2012080021.html#target4):

Quote
The hackers targeted banks first in Europe and then in Latin America and the US, according to Intel-owned security vendor McAfee, which helped in the theft investigation, dubbed Operation High Roller.
The company said the hackers focused on large bank accounts and stole between $75 million and $2.5 billion. Most of the withdrawals were less than $10,000, and the biggest was $130,000. The thieves transferred stolen money to their own accounts in various European locations.
McAfee said the attacks were unusual in that they were largely automated and used cloud computing. Typically, people who hack bank accounts steal usernames and passwords and then manually transfer money from one victim at a time.

That's more money lost than the entire bitcoin economy.

Hopefully this helps to put things into perspective a bit.


Title: Re: Real banks are safe, right? And don't suffer attacks like bitcoin?
Post by: Francesco on September 13, 2012, 11:58:43 PM
Just stumbled upon this article describing a hack where between $75 million and $2.5 billion was lost (http://www.computer.org/csdl/mags/co/2012/08/mco2012080021.html#target4):

Quote
The hackers targeted banks first in Europe and then in Latin America and the US, according to Intel-owned security vendor McAfee, which helped in the theft investigation, dubbed Operation High Roller.
The company said the hackers focused on large bank accounts and stole between $75 million and $2.5 billion. Most of the withdrawals were less than $10,000, and the biggest was $130,000. The thieves transferred stolen money to their own accounts in various European locations.
McAfee said the attacks were unusual in that they were largely automated and used cloud computing. Typically, people who hack bank accounts steal usernames and passwords and then manually transfer money from one victim at a time.

That's more money lost than the entire bitcoin economy.

Hopefully this helps to put things into perspective a bit.

Yes, but did depositors actually lose their deposits? (or maybe, were they told they would be maybe paid back in 3 years time?)


Title: Re: Real banks are safe, right? And don't suffer attacks like bitcoin?
Post by: marcus_of_augustus on September 14, 2012, 12:02:47 AM
Just stumbled upon this article describing a hack where between $75 million and $2.5 billion was lost (http://www.computer.org/csdl/mags/co/2012/08/mco2012080021.html#target4):

Quote
The hackers targeted banks first in Europe and then in Latin America and the US, according to Intel-owned security vendor McAfee, which helped in the theft investigation, dubbed Operation High Roller.
The company said the hackers focused on large bank accounts and stole between $75 million and $2.5 billion. Most of the withdrawals were less than $10,000, and the biggest was $130,000. The thieves transferred stolen money to their own accounts in various European locations.
McAfee said the attacks were unusual in that they were largely automated and used cloud computing. Typically, people who hack bank accounts steal usernames and passwords and then manually transfer money from one victim at a time.

That's more money lost than the entire bitcoin economy.

Hopefully this helps to put things into perspective a bit.

Yes, but did depositors actually lose their deposits? (or maybe, were they told they would be maybe paid back in 3 years time?)

Which demonstrates who actually had deposits, and not just fictional numbers in a database.


Title: Re: Real banks are safe, right? And don't suffer attacks like bitcoin?
Post by: sadpandatech on September 14, 2012, 12:10:16 AM
Yes, but did depositors actually lose their deposits? (or maybe, were they told they would be maybe paid back in 3 years time?)

You can bet your ass the banking system will recover any loss it incures by either having the loss paid back by the government out of our tax dollars or by prtinging more money and paying themselves back, in turn making your deposit worth that much less in value....


Title: Re: Real banks are safe, right? And don't suffer attacks like bitcoin?
Post by: Berend de Boer on September 14, 2012, 01:33:03 AM
You can bet your ass the banking system will recover any loss it incures by either having the loss paid back by the government out of our tax dollars or by prtinging more money and paying themselves back, in turn making your deposit worth that much less in value....

In reply to the first replier.

That's the difference: banks don't suffer losses, they basically adjust a number in their computer systems, and voila, new money is being created.

With bitcoin, you can't do that.