Bitcoin-central resumes operations

[Joost]

Opening seems to have been succesful, and no strange edge-case trades have registered

[Herodes]

UPDATE:
We expect to be back online in the next hours.
Please appreciate the fact that we have had to accomplish two tasks in a very short time:
1. reconfigure our servers environment to upgrade the security: this was the cause of the service suspension.
2. thoroughly audit and review a large amount of logs and transaction data to make sure everything was in pristine condition before we display the accounts and allow new transactions again.

The review and audit turned out to be more time consuming than we expected.
Bear in mind that this was no routine since bitcoin-central had run uninterrupted for the past 27 months, i.e since its inception in January 2011.
Again, we thank you for your patience, specially those of you who are sending support messages or are simply not contacting us with inquiries at this time.

I would advise to hire some security professionals to do a security audit of your system.

[1PFYcabWEwZFm2Ez5LGTx3ftz]

"BTC withdraws will be processed manually for the next couple of days until we switch back to immediate automatic withdraws.
This temporary restriction is meant to allow careful monitoring of our operations in the initial phase of the recovery."

This looks way too much like Cyprus situation. Oh, the irony.

Why oh why on Earth would you do this? Why open the website for trade, but not allow people to withdraw? Even if you are sincere about "is meant to allow careful monitoring of our operations", don't you see how messed up this looks to your users?

I didn't lose my trust when you were hacked, I didn't lose my trust when you were offline for a week, I didn't lose my trust when the deadline for re-opening the website was extended several times, but NOW I lost any trust I had in you. I am withdrawing everything I have (assuming that will be possible at all; my bitcoin withdrawal is "pending" for ~36 hours now), and never using your website again.

_{(sorry for double post, but I believe this is important for everyone to see)}

[1PFYcabWEwZFm2Ez5LGTx3ftz]

UPDATE:
My withdrawal finally got completed (after more than 48 hours), but now bitcoin-central is down again.
I still had some funds there which I was not yet able to withdraw.

[nicoin]

1. bitcoin-central is down again, apparently under DDOS attack
https://twitter.com/Bitcoin_Central

2. There are missing funds in my account. I had sent BTC to my account on apr 2 before realizing the site was down, 4 messages to support and no response so far. Blockchain shows the transfer completed, but then was transferred to another account on apr 5 while site was offline.

let's hope they get everything back under control and start responding to users.

[Herodes]

Bitcoin Central at this point have a serious problem with trust. I would advise them to consult an indpendent company for a complete security audit of their IT systems.

[d5000]

I was also been able to withdraw BTC funds from Bitcoin-Central.

I don't think we must distrust Paymium, but I think they have massive problems with the increase of interest in Bitcoin, just like the other exchanges. They are a little company (like all BTC companies, even MtGox). I hope they will be able to scale up the infrastructure so we continue to have a trustworthy EUR exchange.

[Herodes]

I was also been able to withdraw BTC funds from Bitcoin-Central.

I don't think we must distrust Paymium, but I think they have massive problems with the increase of interest in Bitcoin, just like the other exchanges. They are a little company (like all BTC companies, even MtGox). I hope they will be able to scale up the infrastructure so we continue to have a trustworthy EUR exchange.

Paymium is not affiliated with Instawallet ?

[Boussac]

I would advise them to consult an indpendent company for a complete security audit of their IT systems.

How condescending .
Had you read my posts, you would have known that we did hire experts without waiting for your advice..
We rebuilt a complete production environment from scratch.

[Boussac]

UPDATE:

Following the DDoS attack of today, verified account holders can write to support@bitcoin-central.net to receive a signed message with an alternate url.

The message will be signed by Davout whose public key is available from the Web of Trust on Bitcoin OTC.

[Herodes]

I would advise them to consult an indpendent company for a complete security audit of their IT systems.

How condescending .

Not at all - as you've already had your systems compromised, seeking outside help from professionals is not a bad thing to do.

[BitAurum]

UPDATE:

Following the DDoS attack of today, verified account holders can write to support@bitcoin-central.net to receive a signed message with an alternate url.

The message will be signed by Davout whose public key is available from the Web of Trust on Bitcoin OTC.

To anyone wondering: The plain-text email contains a line-break (before the link) that was not calculated for the signature. If you copy the signed part from the html-message (or open it in gmail and paste it into a txt-file like I did), gpg will give you a good signature.
This problem is quite frequent, even 20 years into the whole idea of formatted text I still believe writing emails in html is a bad thing

Good luck with the attack!

[Eluc]

UPDATE:

Following the DDoS attack of today, verified account holders can write to support@bitcoin-central.net to receive a signed message with an alternate url.

The message will be signed by Davout whose public key is available from the Web of Trust on Bitcoin OTC.

I'm waiting for the email replay... I hope I can access my fresh bitcoin, I need it for buying stuff (yeah some people still use it for that...).

EDIT: I got the link thank you. I've made a bitcoin withdrawal, it's displayed as "Done" but there is no trace after a few minutes ?! Should I expect delay or something ?

[BitAurum]

UPDATE:

Following the DDoS attack of today, verified account holders can write to support@bitcoin-central.net to receive a signed message with an alternate url.

The message will be signed by Davout whose public key is available from the Web of Trust on Bitcoin OTC.

I'm waiting for the email replay... I hope I can access my fresh bitcoin, I need it for buying stuff (yeah some people still use it for that...).

EDIT: I got the link thank you. I've made a bitcoin withdrawal, it's displayed as "Done" but there is no trace after a few minutes ?! Should I expect delay or something ?

Same here, made a test-withdrawal for 1.5 BTC or so. Got a confirmation pretty soon, even with an included Tx-ID (cea2c0c19425ca36797bad5a78bd380b27b5df50691806750a98deddfcfc605a), but it doesn't show up in the network. Not good...

Edit: Bitcoins received, that's a relief. Apparently they create the raw transaction, review it and then push it into the network. Not how I would do it, but I'm not running the place. When my two EUR-Withdrawals are processed, I might even consider quitting smoking again

[mrbitbank]

Well I am relieved to say that my sepa withdrawal showed up in my bank account today, thanks

[Raoul Duke]

Well I am relieved to say that my sepa withdrawal showed up in my bank account today, thanks

One of mine also. 2 more missing

[d5000]

Website works normally now.

I have withdrawn BTC from my account and they were sent instantly. Seems automatic withdrawal is working again.

Hope we can switch to normality now, being careful and storing larger amounts in a secure place. (Instawallet, I know, is other story)

[benkebab]

Evrything turned out fine for me: my SEPA transfer came through, I could trade with the alternate url that was sent by the support team, and I could withdraw my coins yesterday night.

[BitAurum]

Can anyone confirm receiving a SEPA payout that was initiated later than April 8th? I have two payouts confirmed by email by now, the first message was received Wednesday 11:00 AM and usually these transfers, once they hit the banks, are processed within one day... Now it's Friday evening and I am still waiting for the funds to arrive on my bank account...

Bitcoin Central appears to work fine but I am worried that I have to plan in delays like these from now on.

edit: some rephrasing

[iambaboon]

Received a payout yesterday, confirmed on April 11, albeit small (3xx EUR ).

Later edit:
Until now, every confirmed payment has hit my account, so no sign of them lying there. However, there was always a delay between requesting a withdrawal and confirmation of the payment (the pending state inbetween), fortunately only 1 or 2 times it's been more than 2 days. They seem to control the situation, we'll see.

We should keep this updated if withdrawals are delayed.