[Information] Altsbit Exchange hacked

[maxreish]

Just to inform everyone.

One of the new cryptocurrency exchange( Altsbit Exchange)has been closed down due to another hacked issues.

According to them,

"Unfortunately we have to notify you with the fact that our exchange was hacked during the night and almost all funds from BTC, ETH, ARRR and VRSC were stolen. A small part of the funds are safe on cold wallets."

And a total of $63,000 worth of all coins has been stolen. The exchange will make some partial refunds to the affected clients.

For those who has an account there, please be informed of the said refunding date.

"Refunds will begin on February 10 2020 and end on May 8 2020, after this date it will no longer be possible to request a refund as the Altsbit platform will be terminated."

Reference:
https://www.coindesk.com/new-crypto-exchange-altsbit-says-it-will-close-following-hack

[DdmrDdmr]

<…> Good thing that the responsible for this mess (The group of hacker) was already arrested and admitted the said thief acts <…>

Not sure if that part of the article is correct, and there may be a language feature here. I’ve looked it up on another 10 or so sources, and none reference any arrests. One references arrests in the past in relation to the alleged hacker group, but not to the depicted events at AltsBit.

The closest I’ve found has a different wording regarding the arrest assertion:

https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2020/02/10/cryptocurrency-exchange-platform-altsbit-to-shut-down-after-a-hack/

At the moment, the Black Hat group LulzSec has claimed the responsibility of this hack. They tweeted that Altsbit did not have the proper security to stop them, and many more hacks will follow. They warned other exchanges to buff up their security.
The group has already been linked with the Sony Pictures hack in 2011, along with some other major hacks. Some of its members have been arrested in the past as well.

Take note of the warning maked in bold above.

[maxreish]

<…> Good thing that the responsible for this mess (The group of hacker) was already arrested and admitted the said thief acts <…>

Not sure if that part of the article is correct, and there may be a language feature here. I’ve looked it up on another 10 or so sources, and none reference any arrests. One references arrests in the past in relation to the alleged hacker group, but not to the depicted events at AltsBit.

Oh yeah, thanks for the heads up. I've cleared and edit it already. Anyway, the security of such exchange is the most significant feature we are looking for here. I don't wanna judge Altsbit exchange, even the most trusted and reputable exchange who also offered some security platforms can be hacked as well.

[sujonali1819]

So, another exchange hacked and decided to shut down like cryptopia did previously. It is really very sad. This type of news also affects on bitcoin movement.

This was a little exchange for that it is very big amount what they lost by this hacked. It is fine that they decided to refund It's  users from their cold Storage. 

Btw people should now follow the instruction how they can be refunded that is provided on the exchange site before it shut  down.

[Pffrt]

And a total of $63,000 worth of all coins has been stolen. The exchange will make some partial refunds to the affected clients.

I don't know how this amount is true. ARRR all alone can make $196000 at the moment. What about the BTC? 6929 BTC lost or $6929 worth of BTC lost. The number is very much confusional.
This is interesting though-

The group, a number of whose members have been arrested, has been linked to previous major hacks including one of Sony Pictures in 2011.

From coindesk.
Some days ago, I read one article where Craig was linked to the MtGox hack.

[DdmrDdmr]

<...>

Well, it doesn’t help that the source of the information uses in the same line as a thousands separator the “,” and the “.” Symbol:

2. Current verified losses are:

BTC Lost 6,929 coins out of 14,782 - 7.853 will be returned to users. 53.10% (Refunded)
ETH Lost 23,21 out of 32,262 - 9.052 will be returned to users. 28.06% (Refunded)
ARRR Lost 3924082 out of 9619754 - 5695672 will be returned to users 59.20% (Refunded)
VRSC Lost 414154 out of 852726 - 438572 will be returned to users 51.24% (Refunded)
KMD Lost 1066 out of 48015 - 46949 will be returned to users. 97.77% (Refunded)
 

https://altsbit.com/order?url=arrr-btc

I figure most articles are getting their data from here, and it’s darn well confusing…

Judging from their site, the “,” should be a thousands separator. That would mean that the ETH entry is misplaced, and should be 23210.

That would make the loss really around:73,8M$

These would be my numbers thefore:

Code:

	Amount	USD Equivalent
BTC	6929	 68428517 
ETH	23210	 5174669 
ARRR	3924082	 214007 
VRSC	414154	 32611 
KMD	1066	 873 

Am I right here? (probably scenario B further down this thread makes more sense)

Note:Bloody confusing reading the data from the Altsbit site.

[khaled0111]

...

It seems they don't know there is a difference between "," and ".". No wonder why they got hacked!

Also, why an exchange pretending to be "Your reliable cryptocurrency partner" would keep most of its users fund on hot wallets?!
It's a new exchange with small trading volume and few withdrawal orders. They don't need to keep that much on their hot wallets. I am sad for what happened to them though.

[Pffrt]

Also, why an exchange pretending to be "Your reliable cryptocurrency partner" would keep most of its users fund on hot wallets?!

I wouldn't believe an exchange can risk such a big amount storing them in hot wallet. What about the traditional way of exit scam. May be that's what they have done behind the scene.

It's a new exchange with small trading volume and few withdrawal orders.

It's not that pretty new, they launched on April 2018 which is almost 2 years. In coinmarketcap, it says the previous name was digitalprice. Don't know if digitalprice was before 2018 or not.

[sujonali1819]

Really it makes confusion me too. I think The comma"," should be dot"." everywhere they used.

So,
6,929 BTC= 6.629 BTC
23,210 ETH= 23.21 ETH

I have read their some twitter posts. See bellow,

https://mobile.twitter.com/altsbit/status/1226216820983705600

In this post if comma would not be dot then the BTC amount should be 692+ millions and the Eth amount should be 2+ billions.


https://mobile.twitter.com/altsbit/status/1225850217150504960
In this post they maybe did not try to misuse of comma","
And used a correct format.

Ops Previous comments was posted during typing my post.  

[mk4]

Freakin dots and commas lol. They can't even decide on which one to use:


https://twitter.com/altsbit/status/1226216820983705600

Hot damn Altsbit doesn't even re-read their tweets before sending them out. But I guess it doesn't matter for them now as they're gonna close up anyway.  

[DdmrDdmr]

This is pretty bonkers ...


Scenario B would be that of an Exchange that hardly held any BTC/ETH, and had more presence in Alts (which, in accordance to their name, might be so):

Code:

	Amount	            USD Equivalent
BTC	6,929	               68.429 
ETH	23,21	                5.175 
ARRR	3924082	              214.007 
VRSC	414154	               32.611 
KMD	1066	                  873 

',' is decimal.
This scenario totals the loss at around 321K$. I'm more inclined towards this scenario (because of the Alt thingy), but we could even go on a poll here ....

Note: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator indicates the following:


The problem here (Altsbit) is not the use of one or another, but using both within the same line of text. I personaly use the ',' as a decimal point, and the '.' as a thousands separator, in accordance to my locale (which is the opposite to North America, China, India, and so forth).

[Bttzed03]

I can't help but laugh at the comments and the confusion with the commas. I actually read about the hack yesterday and have no clue about how they use the commas as well. I didn't bother checking the amount further because of that It's an Italian exchange (according to @Baofeng) so we should probably look at how they write numbers. I thought only Indonesians have a weird way with numbers but here comes Altsbit

[bugsbuds]

So another exchange has been hacked. Is this hacked for real or is just "hacked"? How they can proove they was hacked or only saying? If they can prove it i have nothing to say.

[cryptoaddictchie]

Freakin dots and commas lol. They can't even decide on which one to use:

I think this exchange somehow same with Indonesian habit of using comma instead of dot. I have a co workers and I'm got confuse always why he keep using comma for unnatural set of number which give some confusion. But he explained that's how they put up in such values. The difference is correct but this values with commas and dot will totally be a confusion for all who doesnt recognize their style.

I didn't bother checking the amount further because of that It's an Italian exchange thought only Indonesians have a weird way with numbers but here comes Altsbit

So Italian have the same style in using commas and dot in figures? This is new for me, I thought only Indos have this habit.

"Refunds will begin on February 10 2020 and end on May 8 2020, after this date it will no longer be possible to request a refund as the Altsbit platform will be terminated."

I have an account there. Luckily dont have any funds yet and decided to hold my coins that are listed there. Hopefully everyone will be informed cause they might got shocked if they are so busy ans suddenly they cant access any of their funds in their compromised exchange.

[DdmrDdmr]

This thread is excellent to help us keep some perspective on exchange hacks over time: Hacked Exchanges since 2011. The number of known hacks was larger in 2019 than nearly all the history of exchanges (only beaten by the year 2013), tolling 16 exchanges being hacked, some of them as important as Binance.

This reiterates the message to keep your funds to a minimal on exchanges (to cover quick operational at most). Some exchanges will survive the hack, and others such as Altsbit will not. On this latter one, I don’t believe the figure is 63K$. That is a very small figure to cause a seize of activity over.

[UserU]

So another exchange has been hacked. Is this hacked for real or is just "hacked"? How they can proove they was hacked or only saying? If they can prove it i have nothing to say.

No one knows. Unless the police conducts some investigation like the Cryptopia case, we've to wait and see.

[Banadony]

Another bad news again for crypto exchanges. i hope traders get all their funds back successfully. they company should file for hack and make such the perpetrators are brought to book. it is nolonger a news that hackers are still trying to bring down crypto projects down.

[khaled0111]

This scenario totals the loss at around 321K$. I'm more inclined towards this scenario (because of the Alt thingy), but we could even go on a poll here ....

The article you linked in op was updated recently and according to the latest updates it seems the total value of stolen coins is around $72.5 million!!  

How they can proove they was hacked or only saying? If they can prove it i have nothing to say.

I doubt it to be an inside job or an exit scam since LulzSec confirmed they were responsible for the hack.

[DdmrDdmr]

<...>

Ok, so AltsBit have now modified their announcement (unified ',' and '.' Into '.'), so it now reads:

BTC Lost 6.929 coins out of 14.782 - 7.853 will be returned to users. 53.10% (Refunded)
ETH Lost 23.21 out of 32.262 - 9.052 will be returned to users. 28.06% (Refunded)
ARRR Lost 3924082 out of 9619754 - 5695672 will be returned to users 59.20% (Refunded)
VRSC Lost 414154 out of 852726 - 438572 will be returned to users 51.24% (Refunded)
KMD Lost 1066 out of 48015 - 46949 will be returned to users. 97.77% (Refunded)

Since the percentage is using '.' as a decimal separator, being consistent, one would interpret the '.' as a decimal point, so  6.929 los BTCs would be "nearly 7 lost BTCs" which is aligned to my scenario B rather than scenario A.

The OP modified article on Coindesk now vouches for a total loss of 72.5M$, which is similar to my scenario A … but inconsistent with the '.' placed in the percentage as a decimal separator (which leads to the … be "nearly 7 lost BTCs" interpretation) fun right? (perhaps the Coindesk reporter is caught in the same loop).

This source makes it 285k$ (similar, but a bit off from my scenario B).

<...> Is there any exchange who are refunding its users after the hack that's faster than Altsbit? Maybe Binance but any others?

Altsbit is a performing a partial refund (not full), before closing the exchange for good.

[rosezionjohn]

They can't even be consistent whether to use comma or dot as separator, no wonder they're hacked.

That's hilarious

I doubt it to be an inside job or an exit scam since LulzSec confirmed they were responsible for the hack.

I don't know who this guy is but he must be a big shot hacker. Never a great thing to see funds stolen but one positive thing that can be taken out of this though is reminding exchanges to beef up their security and users to move their funds out of exchanges or encourage them to use DEXs instead like one commenter said in reply to the tweet

You guys got a bit of my $BTC but it's cool I guess. Push everyone to use dex

Is there any exchange who are refunding its users after the hack that's faster than Altsbit? Maybe Binance but any others?