What are the chances of an exchange being hacked?

[altrolo017]

I finally bought some alt coins and am currently researching the best wallet options for the different coins. I never stop hearing about 'never leave your coins on an exchange' and I don't intend to however I would like to know how likely is it that the exchange gets hacked? In this case it's BITTREX and does this happen often? Or am I more likely to get hacked on my own PC? Where is the greatest risk? Thanks.

[puremage111]

Alright, great question there

First of all, i would suggest you to turn on 2FA

When people say about exchanges getting hacked, it is usually exchanges wallet were compromised due to security breach, exchanges normaly uses cold/hot wallet, multisig wallet, so it is very hard for their digital wallet to get compromised unless others has access to it
But it would not very likely for exchanges which run for years to get hack as i believe they put lots of their funds on security operation

In the other case, how likely are you going to get hacked on your pc? well the only thing you need to worry is
1) Always check if you are on the right site
2) Always double confirm the address you sent/receive
3) Never download any suspicious link

The only way for your account to get hacked on your own pc is usully by keylogging and phishing. Therefore, get 2FA

[kelsey]

Where is the greatest risk?

hmmmmm

- Chance of an Exchange being subject to an external hack : almost 0% (btw an established non noob exchange)

- Chance of an Exchange being subject to a hack 'cough' 'cough': almost 100%


(the whole point of p2p crypto is to be your own bank, which that you take risk, learn to secure your cryptos or stick to fiat and the traditional banking system.)

[MySeriousFaceIsOn]

We could talk this to death for pages and pages and the only main take-away point will be to use some kind of non-email 2FA.

[janedt]

I finally bought some alt coins and am currently researching the best wallet options for the different coins. I never stop hearing about 'never leave your coins on an exchange' and I don't intend to however I would like to know how likely is it that the exchange gets hacked? In this case it's BITTREX and does this happen often? Or am I more likely to get hacked on my own PC? Where is the greatest risk? Thanks.

It will not happen if the security on that exchanges is good and you said it's bittrex, in my opinion Bittrex is really good and i never had an issue on this exchanges. For me bittrex is really safe and it's safe to leave your coins on this exchanges but yeah it's better not leave your coins for long day like 5 months - 1 year. Hacked on your own pc is depend on your pc and yourself though, don't download or open something suspicious and look twice before open web wallet, because there are many phising sites.

[Babayega31]

I finally bought some alt coins and am currently researching the best wallet options for the different coins. I never stop hearing about 'never leave your coins on an exchange' and I don't intend to however I would like to know how likely is it that the exchange gets hacked? In this case it's BITTREX and does this happen often? Or am I more likely to get hacked on my own PC? Where is the greatest risk? Thanks.

It will not happen if the security on that exchanges is good and you said it's bittrex, in my opinion Bittrex is really good and i never had an issue on this exchanges. For me bittrex is really safe and it's safe to leave your coins on this exchanges but yeah it's better not leave your coins for long day like 5 months - 1 year. Hacked on your own pc is depend on your pc and yourself though, don't download or open something suspicious and look twice before open web wallet, because there are many phising sites.

Anything would possibly happen and if one of the exchanger sites will not update there security surely their hard defense will be broke and hackers will get in. But if the exchanger will focus to make their barrier strong then we shouldn't be worried for that to be happen. And we must select those big sites to trade so that we can assure that we are on safe exchange and not on unsure ones.

[nelmari]

For as long as you enabled your 2fa on your exchange account you are safe from being hacked but I can't say it is a 100% sure because there are some accounts here or I've read it here in this forum that even if their account enabled the 2fa they lost their coins. 

[alyssa85]

The chances are pretty high. MtGox got hacked, as did Vircurex. With Mintpal and Cryptsy, the admins ran away with the money.

Poloniex got hacked, but made good users coins from their own money.

Bitfinex got hacked ans "socialised" the loss by taking a cut from everyone's funds. BTC-E was apparently hacking other people, and their wallets have been seized by the FBI.

The only people with insurance against hacking are Coinbase. With every other exchange, you are taking a risk.

[avatar_kiyoshi]

I finally bought some alt coins and am currently researching the best wallet options for the different coins. I never stop hearing about 'never leave your coins on an exchange' and I don't intend to however I would like to know how likely is it that the exchange gets hacked? In this case it's BITTREX and does this happen often? Or am I more likely to get hacked on my own PC? Where is the greatest risk? Thanks.

Yes, don't store your coin on the exchange, use just for exchange and make sure to setup 2FA in your exchange account & your PC wallet.

Well I prefer to storing my altcoin into desktop lightweight wallet or if there's no lightweight wallet for specific coin which I want to storing, I choose wallet from their official although it's must download the whole data.

'Where is the greatest risk?' Storing into an exchange.
With desktop wallet on your PC, you can manually upgrade your security/antivirus/anti malware/ect, you can let the wallet offline and always make sure to scan site/file that you think strange/fishy.

[altrolo017]

Thanks all for your input, one last question. If I don't fall into a phising trap or download any malware and don't have any viruses how easy is it to be hacked and money stolen from a desktop wallet if you're running Win 10? For example if i'm targeted by some hacker. Just trying to gauge how secure I am as typical cryptocurrency user.

[avatar_kiyoshi]

Thanks all for your input, one last question. If I don't fall into a phising trap or download any malware and don't have any viruses how easy is it to be hacked and money stolen from a desktop wallet if you're running Win 10? For example if i'm targeted by some hacker. Just trying to gauge how secure I am as typical cryptocurrency user.

Just make sure your system up-to-date. AFAIK win 10 have some bug in their system: https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2017/05/09/microsoft-windows-bug-allowed-one-email-hack-google-says/amp/ I don't have experience use win 10.
All this time i used win7/win8, so far there's no problem.

[Josepht]

Although I wouldn't advise to keep a lot of your coins on online exchanges, the chances that a hack will happen to an established exchange is close to 0%. Keep in mind that you can lose your coins in another way as well, if you don't protect your account properly.