Bitcoin Forum

CAVIRTEX, a Canadian Bitcoin exchange, has announced that it will be permanently ceasing all operations in March. The exchange cited security breaches as their reason for closing.

Read here http://coinfinance.com/news/cavirtex-bitcoin-exchange-shuts-down-after-being-hacked

Yeah that's sad. I've been using them with no issues for almost 3 years. I'm now moving to QuadrigaCX, site looks pretty slick.



Edit:


Update for bitcoin withdrawals:


https://twitter.com/CAVIRTEX/status/569866796569751552

Damn, too many security breaches at exchanges recently..

Mother fucker...

we, as a normal user, cant afford to lose any more at the hacked exchanges any more. We want security exchanges when trading, some sort of decentralized exchange.

Well, at least they will return all the customer's fund.

Did you pledge for BitSquare (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=932517.0) ?

DO NOT HOLD YOUR BTC ON THIRD PARTY EXCHANGES – BE YOUR OWN BANK

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=945881.0

Is there any customer fund lost because of this ?

everyone is getting hacked

CA Virtex was not hacked for any FUNDS but did have some information compromised.
In my opinion this is a risk vs profitability move

CA Virtex is also regulated by FINTRAC which is Canada's FINCEN.
If this was an actual hack. Canadian News would of been all over it.

Another story here



http://bitcoinbarbie.com/canadian-bitcoin-exchange-cavirtex-is-shutting-down-operations/

They should start making exchanges that use your own addresses as storage.

They did not lose any BTC. Their old copy of their database with encrypted passwords and other user infos was compromised. This is a huge security risk if the hashing algorithm is weak or other sensitive informations are kept encrypted.

It seems there is a new hack every other day. This is not good for BTC, but then it may benefit by killing incompetent exchanges and only the strong ones survive.

Unfortunately, this is all a part of the learning curve for these exchanges of this new 6 year old technology.  Mistakes and lesson learned for both the providers and the end users.

Seems there weren't any thefts or losses of the scope and scale of Gox or Stamp even, just privacy and personal info leaked, which although bad, aren't quite the losses in the millions we continue to hear with those other exchanges.

Short term it's bad, but long term it's necessary to weed out the weak and incompetent players, so Bitcoin exchanges as a whole can step forward.

It's not security breaches, its the owners running away with the money because they are scared at the bitcoin crash. Too bad idiots trusted their money into them instead of leaving them on their wallets or waiting for the Gemini exchange.

I have seen many exchanges scamming people. people should choose exchanges carefully

that makes no sense, if there was no loss why did they not simply fix the security breach by migrating to a new DB, reset password etc.?

VERY fishy  ???

That's what I been saying. Something feels off here.

Maybe one of the home-based workers locked in Joseph Davids basement finally ran off with the thumb drive that had the database on it.

Quite possible.... I'd give this scenario a 15% chance of being correct.

Well, looks like Canadian Exchange options are once again dwindled down to nothing.

Vault of Satoshi closed not long ago, not as a result of any security stuff, they just... closed shop; was the only good exchange in Canada.

I don't need a $ exchange anymore... viva mining.

Not shocking, not caring.

It has become an habit for an Exchange to claim it was hacked......just to run away with the cash bag!

MtGox
BTC-e
CAVIRTEX

...what's next?

You can't never know the truth.

it may be very true. poor programming is the cause of hacking. even a very strong programmer team cannot guarantee that you cannot be hacked. however it's very expensive to hire very good programmers....
also, you have to hire permanently a programmer and a server admin. i don't think that a small-medium exchange service can afford a such thing

Wow, this is such GOOD NEWS!

I hated CaVirtex from the start. They stole 8.932010 btc from me on August 12, 2014 and blamed it on hackers.

THEN they admitted it wasn't hackers, but they needed me to fax them ID, PASSPORT, and BANK STATEMENT to release my funds.

What FUCKERS .. glad they are FINISHED

I've used them for a couple of years and while I've Not been burned of actually hacking theft, they take forever to do their "instant" bank transfers, and I don't see how he can be losing money when he places a ridiculous spread and charges exorbitant fees.
It seems like it's one guy running it by himself.
At least he's out before anyone got burned, does anyone have any money in there still? I think there's 12 cents CAD in my account.
Keep the change lol

i think btc is on the hacker radar now.  will 2015 be the year of hacked coin?

If they get hacked, most users would lose trust in them and leave them. They probably think that they have no confidence of holding onto user's private information. If they are insolvent, they shouldn't be able to refund all the users.
Bullshit. Poor security practices are result of hacking of exchanges, this can always happen with government organizations and bank if they do not have good security. It is not related with vulnerability in Bitcoin protocol.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=956768.msg10468445#msg10468445

Did they reimburse everyone?

not yet.
btc/ ltc withdrawals still closed, but bank deposits should be working.
I made a $ withdrawal the other day, should receive it tomorrow or Tuesday at latest.

I agree with this .. use an exchange to buy or sell Bitcoins but do NOT hold Bitcoins at an exchange permanently.

I don't even recommend to my own users that they hold bitcoins at my exchanges .. just buy/sell and withdraw to an offline wallet.

I can confirm that my $500 withdrawal came into my bank account today.

I too can confirm that CAD withdrawals are working.

exchanger is not a bank, do not store what you dont want to sell since it is an exchanger, a palce to sell and buy, so keep your bitcoins in your own wallet

Update for bitcoin withdrawals:


https://twitter.com/CAVIRTEX/status/569866796569751552

I have been able to withdraw all my BTC from the exchange as of now.

I am very proud of CaVirtex.

No, I don't swallow that. Lots of places were hacked temporarily (btce poloniex stamp and others) and they fixed the issues and moved on. It must have been a breach so severe they did not dare to keep going (which is almost unthinkable), OR, it was not a hack at all but a visit from the men in black

like this email service in the Snowden affair http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit

sure enough government bullies love systems that hold centralized private keys like banks or Lavabit  >:(

Those hack are less severe with no user data or one or two due to poor security by the user. Even though bitstamp and poloniex lost a lot of Bitcoins, no user data was compromised, only Bitcoins were lost. They can easily fix this and cover the hacked amount easily given their trade volume. A database leak is obviously very severe compared to Bitcoin loss which is recoverable. Once user data are seen by others, the privacy of the user would be breached. Cavirtex probably didn't have confidence to hold user's fund and personal information after that hack even if they fix it.