Japanese exchange Coincheck has been hacked

[alyssa85]

Here is the article in Japanese:

https://news.yahoo.co.jp/byline/yamamotoichiro/20180126-00080895/

Here is a reddit thread about it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/7t3rff/one_of_japans_biggest_exchanges_hacked_62_billion/

And here is the Financial Times:

https://www.ft.com/content/c9771c32-0284-11e8-9650-9c0ad2d7c5b5

It looks like 62 billion yen ($570 million) worth of XEM/NEM have been stolen. They've halted trading and withdrawals of NEM.

[shinratensei_]

Here is the article in Japanese:

https://news.yahoo.co.jp/byline/yamamotoichiro/20180126-00080895/

Here is a reddit thread about it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/7t3rff/one_of_japans_biggest_exchanges_hacked_62_billion/

And here is the Financial Times:

https://www.ft.com/content/c9771c32-0284-11e8-9650-9c0ad2d7c5b5

It looks like 62 billion yen ($570 million) worth of XEM/NEM have been stolen. They've halted trading and withdrawals of NEM.

As far as I know about bitflyer is the most prominent exchange in Japan. But it looks coincheck was even bigger than bitflyer.    But sounds like another mtgox. The fund goes somewhere.
This is sucks, how centralized exchange site is fucked us again. At least they said the fund goes somewhere. 

[cynical]

I dont get it,
Exchanges I imagine  make a ton of profit and I would have thought security would be of the utmost importance,
after all they have a duty of care to their members to secure their funds.
further evidence to avoid keeping funds on an exchange
Im feeling very cynical and skeptical.

[Murloc]

I could never understand what the staff of cryptoexchanges is doing. It takes a long time to verify KYC, it takes a huge time to get a respond on your ticket, it also take a huge time to communicate with devs of new coins to get their projects listed and with all those problems exchanges are still lagging with high amount of users and have big security holes. It realy seems like they just need to hire more people to their team but no one cares about it. I hope this is not how it works right now.

[cryptotricks]

Biggest threat for crypto industry.

[newwest]

Biggest threat for crypto industry.

Indeed this type of exchanges which are big and if getting hacked is truly a big - big blow to the cypto industry. By default it is assumed that security be on utmost priority and above and the best in the industry which is offered by other exchanges worldwide. But such things would dent the image of the other exchanges as well because now days we hear a lot about exchanges getting hacked or are they purposely doing it internally itself is still unknown.

[lucianus_luciferus]

you would think that these exchanges can spend 100 bucks on a proper hardware wallet but...

[alyssa85]

Biggest threat for crypto industry.

Yes. So far the only exchange that hasn't been hacked is Kraken - but people complain when they take their time to do upgrades because they're trying to do it right and are spending most of their time on security rather than usability.

The other alternative to spending a lot on security is getting insurance against hacking. So far only Coinbase have done this.

[dothebeats]

I could never understand what the staff of cryptoexchanges is doing. It takes a long time to verify KYC, it takes a huge time to get a respond on your ticket, it also take a huge time to communicate with devs of new coins to get their projects listed and with all those problems exchanges are still lagging with high amount of users and have big security holes. It really seems like they just need to hire more people to their team but no one cares about it. I hope this is not how it works right now.

For all you know, the staff of these exchanges are only few, and that's the reason why support tickets take too long to be replied or to be even read by their team. It's not that they're deliberately ignoring you or what, it's just that these tickets also pile up on their end causing a lot of delays on the replies and whatnot. I know that since I've worked on a similar venture for a short time period. Also, exchanges who do maintenance on the regular doesn't mean they have the best security features and whatnot; they just take the time to check what needs to be done on a certain area and improve it for the betterment of their service.

you would think that these exchanges can spend 100 bucks on a proper hardware wallet but...

That's not how it works. No matter how secure your hardware wallets are, if the security in your own system is bleak, there'd still be a way for hackers to get in and take whatever they want.

[timerland]

Here is the article in Japanese:

https://news.yahoo.co.jp/byline/yamamotoichiro/20180126-00080895/

Here is a reddit thread about it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/7t3rff/one_of_japans_biggest_exchanges_hacked_62_billion/

And here is the Financial Times:

https://www.ft.com/content/c9771c32-0284-11e8-9650-9c0ad2d7c5b5

It looks like 62 billion yen ($570 million) worth of XEM/NEM have been stolen. They've halted trading and withdrawals of NEM.

No wonder why NEM is getting dumped so much today. Around a 15% loss, i would have expected more though.

I still surprises me every single time an exchange gets hacked, because they are earning so much through trading fees and potentially interest from deposits that you would think they have the resources to completely secure user funds from outside intruders.

But apparently that's not the case. Exchanges gets hacked every single year.

Just a valuable lesson for anyone. You should never store coins on an exchange, otherwise when it gets hacked your funds could be in jeopardy.

[Kemarit]

I dont get it,
Exchanges I imagine  make a ton of profit and I would have thought security would be of the utmost importance,
after all they have a duty of care to their members to secure their funds.
further evidence to avoid keeping funds on an exchange
Im feeling very cynical and skeptical.

Really hard to imagine how Coincheck secured their wallet. And I read that NEM was NOT STORED OFFLINE. This is like inviting hackers to take it from them, which was the case now. Damn, I was surprised to read that in one article earlier. They have security lapses, and it's really their fault, but they are also looking to compensate their customers but I'm sure that it will not be full amount that was stolen. This is another example of funds not safe around exchanges. Also this is another bad news to the market's already fragile state, although it is not bitcoin that was stolen. But I'm sure this kind of hack will shy some investors to put their money into the ecosystem. Let's see how it goes in the next coming days.

[bhadz]

The other alternative to spending a lot on security is getting insurance against hacking. So far only Coinbase have done this.

They should take time and invest to insurance to give an assurance that they are safe, this makes a win-win situation not only for an exchange but as well as to the traders. For the folks out there that are into keeping their funds on such exchange, this is why you should never put large amount on any of them.

So far the only exchange that hasn't been hacked is Kraken

I hope they will not be on the news and became a new victim.

[Laland]

The other alternative to spending a lot on security is getting insurance against hacking. So far only Coinbase have done this.

They should take time and invest to insurance to give an assurance that they are safe, this makes a win-win situation not only for an exchange but as well as to the traders. For the folks out there that are into keeping their funds on such exchange, this is why you should never put large amount on any of them.

So far the only exchange that hasn't been hacked is Kraken

I hope they will not be on the news and became a new victim.

I start to wonder how could a high security exchange site be hacked? Aint it an inside job? or maybe they team was behind it and just blame hackers for that certain matter to make the public confusd?. Well we dont know the real story until it is investigated but NEM on other exchange sites i think would drop or will also lock the address. Because where would they sell it if all exchange would canel their NEM account?

[Murloc]

For all you know, the staff of these exchanges are only few, and that's the reason why support tickets take too long to be replied or to be even read by their team. It's not that they're deliberately ignoring you or what, it's just that these tickets also pile up on their end causing a lot of delays on the replies and whatnot. I know that since I've worked on a similar venture for a short time period. Also, exchanges who do maintenance on the regular doesn't mean they have the best security features and whatnot; they just take the time to check what needs to be done on a certain area and improve it for the betterment of their service.

Sure. I am not claiming that they are ignoring users just mecause they want. Ctypto exchanges have insane revenues. Good ones are geting revenue over 1 million USD per week only on fees. It seems to be more than enough to hire some customer support specialists that will verify KYC and respond on tickets. Don't know about the security issues, it is more technical question, but it may seem that exchanges are also not doing their best in this field.

[Slark]

I dont get it,
Exchanges I imagine  make a ton of profit and I would have thought security would be of the utmost importance,
after all they have a duty of care to their members to secure their funds.
further evidence to avoid keeping funds on an exchange
Im feeling very cynical and skeptical.

It never worked that way - security and money are not always going hand in hand.
Bitcoin exchanges are often created and managed by newbies who don't care all that much about tight security.
Another thing is that we cannot eliminate data leaks and security breaches - just take a take a look at this map of World's Biggest Data Breaches:
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/worlds-biggest-data-breaches-hacks/
JP Morga, Yahoo, US Military, eBay, PSN Sony had more security breaches than every single cryptocurrency combined...

[alyssa85]

Coincheck says it will compensate everyone who has had a loss. The following is a blog post they have issued on this, which is in Japanese:

http://corporate.coincheck.com/2018/01/28/30.html

(use google translate to translate it into English)

Refunds will be in Japanese Yen (JPY)

[zoinqueen]

There we go again, one more Mt. Gox On the brighter site this will scare lot of newbies, which is probably good for them as they'd not do any research prior to their investment.

[magneto]

Coincheck says it will compensate everyone who has had a loss. The following is a blog post they have issued on this, which is in Japanese:

http://corporate.coincheck.com/2018/01/28/30.html

(use google translate to translate it into English)

Refunds will be in Japanese Yen (JPY)

So they'll be compensating around 80 yen per NEM, which is 81 cents. Current pricing of NEM is around $1 so that means due to the hack, the people who stored NEM on coincheck will be taking a 15-20% loss from their total investment capital.

Of course, that's better than nothing, and they probably calculated the price of NEM from the bottom its had after the hack. At least they are promising something to compensate the victims, instead of nothing at all. Also there's no IOU token bullcrap, as it seems.

There we go again, one more Mt. Gox On the brighter site this will scare lot of newbies, which is probably good for them as they'd not do any research prior to their investment.

It's got nothing with investments. It's about not keeping any significant amount of money stored on exchanges.

[cryptotricks]

All the NEM were stored in low security HOT wallet instead of a cold wallet. Bitcoins, ethereums were stored in cold and nem was stored in hot wallet and that made hackers to access the funds.

[bhadz]

I start to wonder how could a high security exchange site be hacked? Aint it an inside job? or maybe they team was behind it and just blame hackers for that certain matter to make the public confusd?. Well we dont know the real story until it is investigated but NEM on other exchange sites i think would drop or will also lock the address. Because where would they sell it if all exchange would canel their NEM account?

Their hot wallet has been compromised and hackers gain access to it. No one can tell on how they are hacked and coincheck will never tell a single word on how it all happened.

There we go again, one more Mt. Gox On the brighter site this will scare lot of newbies, which is probably good for them as they'd not do any research prior to their investment.

This is bigger than the Mt. Gox hack and this is considered as one of the biggest cyber heist.

Coincheck says it will compensate everyone who has had a loss.

Good for their traders to still trust them but the feeling of that big loss for the company is painful.