So everyone knows about the "issues" surrounding nicehash.
After some digging it turns out that Matjaž Škorjanc the CTO of nicehash is a former botnet creator / botmaster / hacker for hire..
he has previously been arrested in the world wide sting operation that saw the cybercrime forum Darkode shutdown.
Matjaž Škorjanc created the botnet Mariposa or "butterfly" botnet he was sentenced to 4 years 10 months in jail for his crimes. ( He did not do all the sentence )
The Mariposa botnet infected over 1 million computers possibly more which made it one of the most successful crime toolkits available.
NiceHash CTO Matjaž Škorjanc, as pictured on the front page of a recent edition of the Slovenian daily Delo.si
Bitcoin’s blockchain ledger system makes it easy to see when funds are moved, and NiceHash customers who lost money in the theft have been keeping a close eye on the Bitcoin payment address that received the stolen funds ever since. On Dec. 13, someone in control of that account began transferring the stolen bitcoins to other accounts, according to this transaction record.
The NiceHash theft occurred as the price of Bitcoin was skyrocketing to new highs. On January 1, 2017, a single Bitcoin was worth approximately $976. By December 6, the day of the NiceHash hack, the price had ballooned to $11,831 per Bitcoin.
Today, a single Bitcoin can be sold for more than $17,700, meaning whoever is responsible for the NiceHash hack has seen their loot increase in value by roughly $27 million in the nine days since the theft.
In a post on its homepage, NiceHash said it was in the final stages of re-launching the surrogate mining service.
“Your bitcoins were stolen and we are working with international law enforcement agencies to identify the attackers and recover the stolen funds. We understand it may take some time and we are working on a solution for all users that were affected.
“If you have any information about the attack, please email us at [email protected]. We are giving BTC rewards for the best information received. You can also join our community page about the attack on reddit.“
However, many followers of NiceHash’s Twitter account said they would not be returning to the service unless and until their stolen Bitcoins were returned.
So now the seedy underbelly of nicehash is out in the open who is going to support them now?
My guess is that Škorjanc coded a backdoor into the system or shared the source with some of his "criminal" contacts of the past. or his past has come back to haunt him possibly someone he grassed up when he got caught selling malware? who knows..
