Hackers steal £54,000 from Bitcoin exchange
Controversial digital currency falls under spotlight again as hackers target cloud

Rene Millman
2012-05-14

http://www.cloudpro.co.uk/cloud-essentials/cloud-security/3615/hackers-steal-%C2%A354000-bitcoin-exchange
http://www.itpro.co.uk/640609/hackers-steal-54-000-from-bitcoin-exchange

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In a further post, Zhou said he would “discontinue all involvement" in Bitcoin-related projects until the incident is resolved.

Rackspace declined to comment.

In March, hackers also made off with £141,000 of Bitcoins from Bitcoinica. That time the server was hosted by Linode.

Bitcoinica Suffers Staggering $87,000 Bitcoin Loss in Server Breach

Kit Dotson
2012-05-14

http://siliconangle.com/blog/2012/05/14/bitcoinica-suffers-staggering-87000-bitcoin-loss-in-server-breach/

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This particular breach comes after a months of repeated, serious wallet compromises where massive numbers of bitcoins have been stolen or lost. In early March, a Linode server hack caused the loss of ฿46,703 BTC (worth $228,845 at the time) with the largest fraction of nearly ฿43,000 BTC of the loss coming out of Bitcoinica’s pockets. In August 2011, Bitomat lost their wallet with almost ฿17,000 BTC due to a backup failure when using Amazon’s elastic-computing cloud. Also in that same month, MyBitcoin.com disappeared with $250,000 worth of BTC. Finally, starting the long-line of targeted attacks against Bitcoin wallets and exchanges (or just plain bugs) was the hack against MtGox last year in June—the nascent currency hasn’t caught a break with breaches, insecurity, and bugs since it started to gain widespread publicity.
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The report was not classified, but it was marked “for official use only.” Betabeat, Wired, and a number of blogs ran with the story without confirming the report’s authenticity, but today we got a call back from the FBI. “It is legitimate, but it was not leaked by the government,” an FBI representative told Betabeat.

Betabeat, Wired, and a number of blogs ran with the story without confirming the report’s authenticity, but today we got a call back from the FBI. “It is legitimate, but it was not leaked by the government,” an FBI representative told Betabeat.

FBI: That Bitcoin Report Was Authentic, But It Wasn’t Leaked by Us
The FBI has its eye on Bitcoin.


Adrianne Jeffries
2012-05-14

http://www.betabeat.com/2012/05/14/fbi-that-bitcoin-report-was-authentic-but-it-wasnt-leaked-by-us/

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 Betabeat, Wired, and a number of blogs ran with the story without confirming the report’s authenticity, but today we got a call back from the FBI. “It is legitimate, but it was not leaked by the government,” an FBI representative told Betabeat.

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All in all, the report leaves little impression that the FBI is afraid of Bitcoin or considers it an extraordinary threat, though it does note that “If Bitcoin stabilizes and grows in popularity, it will become an increasingly useful tool for various illegal activities beyond the cyber realm,” citing child pornography, human trafficking, gambling and terrorism.

Bitcoin Theft Drains $92,000 from Bitcoinica
Hackers compromised the company's servers and completely emptied out its online wallet.

Drew Bowling
2012-05-14


http://www.webpronews.com/bitcoin-theft-drains-92000-from-bitcoinica-2012-05

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While a Bitcoin theft like this should be expected at this stage of the online currency’s lifespan, it looks particularly bad for Bitcoinica because this is the second time in less than three months that the company has been hacked.

It’s unfortunate that Bitcoinica fell prey to hackers not only twice but twice within a relatively short amount of time. Such security breaches aren’t really doing the Bitcoin network in favors insofar fostering consumer confidence in the currency.
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Bitcoin exchange gets attacked and loses cash...again!

Carole Theriault
2012-05-14

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2012/05/14/bitcoin-exchange-gets-attacked-and-loses-cash-again/


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This is not the first time this Bitcoin exchange has been targeted. Earlier this year, Bitcoinica's webhost was hacked and over $225,000 worth of Bitcoins was stolen.

And only last Wednesday, Bitcoin was in the news with a leaked FBI internal report [PDF].
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Secretive Internet currency’s server hacked; money stolen


2012-05-14

http://rt.com/usa/news/internet-stolen-bitcoin-currency-226/

Upwards of $90,000 worth of Bitcoins have been stolen from an exchange service website this week, marking the second time in nearly two months that the cyber-currency has been compromised due to a security breach.
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The Somali American Remittance Dilemma

Jon Matonis
2012-05-12

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/05/12/the-somali-american-remittance-dilemma/

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Wait a minute! Doesn’t bitcoin allow for rapid and trustworthy international value transfer? Isn’t bitcoin fairly easy to obtain in the developed economies of North America and Europe? Doesn’t Somalia have good telecommunications infrastructure supporting mobile phones?
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BitCoin hacked, More than 18,000 Bitcoins Stolen

2012-05-13

http://thehackernews.com/2012/05/bitcoin-hacked-more-than-18000-bitcoins.html


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Zhou maintains that apart from the Bitcoins, the database was also stolen but the passwords was salted and encrypted using bcrypt. Zhou mentions that the stolen bitcoins are likely to be reimbursed by Bitcoinica in USD. This isn’t the first time Bitcoinica’s been broken into few months ago Bitcoinica’s bitcoin wallet which stored the funds were stolen due to a breach in Bitcoinica’s then webhost Linode.

Bitcoinica Breach Nets Hackers $87,000 in Bitcoins

2012-05-12

http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/05/12/202235/bitcoinica-breach-nets-hackers-87000-in-bitcoins

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Reader linhares points out a forum post discussing how the attacker(s) hinted at a 'mass leak' in the near future. This attack comes shortly after a leak of a different sort — an FBI document (PDF) about Bitcoin found it way onto the internet. It seems they're worried about the virtual currency's potential use in criminal activities.
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