Sell, sell, sell The hack of Bitcoin 2013 again

[pinger]

Well, is not like that, But it looks that Bitinstant was hacked.

http://www.finextra.com/News/FullStory.aspx?newsitemid=24607

So sell your BTC now, so I can buy more.

[piramida]

12 000 dollars, really? my grandma gets regularly hacked for more money.

[Digikeys]

12 000 dollars, really? my grandma gets regularly hacked for more money.

+2 for piramida.. I lol'd at this and the 'religion permits you from using google'

Well played sir.

[Herodes]

12K USD was an unfortunate loss, but I do think that this also showed that BitInstant had security measures in place, it could've been worse. This sounds like basically one of the worst things that can happen.

But now that this vector of attach has been revealed, it's time to learn and secure it even more.

[proudhon]

Hosting companies and the like have become fruitful attack vectors.  A lot of them clearly don't take security seriously enough if you can call up or write in with a close enough looking email address and get elevated rights.

[Herodes]

Hosting companies and the like have become fruitful attack vectors.  A lot of them clearly don't take security seriously enough if you can call up or write in with a close enough looking email address and get elevated rights.

Well - for the average customer - security is good enough - bitcoin businesses on the other hand has a lot higher demands for security.

[bullioner]

The article doesn't explain the vector from getting access to domain registration administration via the domain registrar, to how the Bitcoins were stolen.  It isn't obvious what this vector would be, and must depend on the specifics of Bitinstant's setup.  Does anyone have more details on this?  Was it actually that they got access to a virtual server?  In which case, why are Bitinstant using virtual servers hosted by someone else?

[Herodes]

In which case, why are Bitinstant using virtual servers hosted by someone else?

A good question - perhaps Bitinstant can answer it ?

[Blazr]

It wasn't the hosting company it was the domain registrar, they used Site5 to register the domain and the hacker convinced them to hand over control of the domain name to him/her. IMO it isn't such a good idea to use Site5 to register domains seeing as it isn't actually an accredited registrar but a reseller for eNom.

I've seen similar happen before, I don't know the exact details of this attack, but the problem of using a reseller like Site5 is that eNom, the actual registrar, don't have the customers details on file, and a hacker can contact eNom directly claiming to own the domain and they would have no idea if its true or not.

[Morblias]

However, says the post, various security measures, such as multi-factor authentication and auto lockdowns prevented any more theft and no personal or transactional information from users has been leaked.

+1 for BitInstant

[twolifeinexile]

However, says the post, various security measures, such as multi-factor authentication and auto lockdowns prevented any more theft and no personal or transactional information from users has been leaked.

+1 for BitInstant

unfornately to BitInstant, but it seems their security practice prevented a much bigger disaster.

[Gareth Nelson]

We posted full details of the incident here:
http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2013/3/4/events-of-friday-bitinstant-back-online.html

Nobody to date has managed to actually break into any of our systems, this was a vulnerability at our domain registrar and sadly there was not a lot we could have done other than choosing another registrar - which is something we will be doing as soon as possible, most likely within the next week we'll start moving.

[creativex]

I've tried to use bitinstant several times in the last couple days, but there's always an error.

[pinger]

We posted full details of the incident here:
http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2013/3/4/events-of-friday-bitinstant-back-online.html

Nobody to date has managed to actually break into any of our systems, this was a vulnerability at our domain registrar and sadly there was not a lot we could have done other than choosing another registrar - which is something we will be doing as soon as possible, most likely within the next week we'll start moving.

Thanks for the link Gareth

[apetersson]

the description of the hack sounded like an awful lot of work and risk for only 333 BTC. Where i live, you earn that easily in three months of honest work as a developer.

[pinger]

the description of the hack sounded like an awful lot of work and risk for only 333 BTC. Where i live, you earn that easily in three months of honest work as a developer.

Maybe it was just an attention touch.

[piramida]

the description of the hack sounded like an awful lot of work and risk for only 333 BTC. Where i live, you earn that easily in three months of honest work as a developer.

Well if it originated in Russia it could be an annual salary; but nevertheless, obviously thiefs were aiming for more, but that's the most they managed to get out in that 12 hours or how long they owned the domain. The hack itself cost hundreds of dollars, so it definitely paid off anyway.

There is a good lesson in all of this. Don't register your domains with cheap shops. Keep your security questions unguessable. No, you don't have to use your actual mother's maiden name.

[bullioner]

We posted full details of the incident here:
http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2013/3/4/events-of-friday-bitinstant-back-online.html

Nobody to date has managed to actually break into any of our systems, this was a vulnerability at our domain registrar and sadly there was not a lot we could have done other than choosing another registrar - which is something we will be doing as soon as possible, most likely within the next week we'll start moving.

Roll on the day when we can securely register names via some kind of global proof-of-work-based transaction log, providing a secure basis for every aspect of name registration.

[Morblias]

We posted full details of the incident here:
http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2013/3/4/events-of-friday-bitinstant-back-online.html

Nobody to date has managed to actually break into any of our systems, this was a vulnerability at our domain registrar and sadly there was not a lot we could have done other than choosing another registrar - which is something we will be doing as soon as possible, most likely within the next week we'll start moving.

Just curious, since this was 100% the domain registrar's fault, do they compensate you for the loss?

[Gareth Nelson]

We posted full details of the incident here:
http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2013/3/4/events-of-friday-bitinstant-back-online.html

Nobody to date has managed to actually break into any of our systems, this was a vulnerability at our domain registrar and sadly there was not a lot we could have done other than choosing another registrar - which is something we will be doing as soon as possible, most likely within the next week we'll start moving.

Just curious, since this was 100% the domain registrar's fault, do they compensate you for the loss?

In an ideal world they would, there's a possibility we could hold them liable but i'd not want to comment on that either way without taking legal advice first.