2020-12-22 Forbes - Massive Hack Exposes Bitcoin’s Greatest Weakness

[acquafredda]

The bitcoin and cryptocurrency community, fiercely protective of its privacy, has been rocked by a massive data breach that's seen the personal information of over 270,000 bitcoin and cryptocurrency users published online.

The data, stolen from popular France-based bitcoin and cryptocurrency hardware wallet Ledger in a July hack, was last week published on RaidForums, a marketplace for buying, selling, and sharing hacked information.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2020/12/23/massive-hack-exposes-bitcoins-greatest-weakness

There you have it: another great clickbait attempt. If Ledger does not know how to handle sensitive users data what does this have to do with bitcoin weaknesses?
That is not some bitcoin weakness

[btcwish1]

The bitcoin and cryptocurrency community, fiercely protective of its privacy, has been rocked by a massive data breach that's seen the personal information of over 270,000 bitcoin and cryptocurrency users published online.

The data, stolen from popular France-based bitcoin and cryptocurrency hardware wallet Ledger in a July hack, was last week published on RaidForums, a marketplace for buying, selling, and sharing hacked information.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2020/12/23/massive-hack-exposes-bitcoins-greatest-weakness

There you have it: another great clickbait attempt. If Ledger does not know how to handle sensitive users data what does this have to do with bitcoin weaknesses?
That is not some bitcoin weakness

When the Banking giants such as 'Bank of america' or 'wells fargo' gets hacked  FIAT is not to blame but when ledger got hacked right way BTC to be blamed?  Fair deal isn't it? 

Pathetic attempt to defame BTC which won't be successful!

[electronicash]

well they iterate that btc is fiercely protective to privacy thats why they see it as weakness even if its a wallet developers database. it doesn't make sense for those who knew it like all of us here but for the ones who only learn BTC from the news, its enough for them not to dig deeper.

[Darker45]

It's funny how other people understand or perhaps misunderstand Bitcoin. I guess many of them are not ignorant about Bitcoin. They're simply malicious.

It is obvious Ledger =/= Bitcoin. In the same manner that Bitcoin =/= Silk Road, Bitcoin =/= AlphaBay, Bitcoin =/= Mt. Gox, and so on. And yet they make it appear as if Bitcoin is all these. Bad reporting to say the least. Or perhaps bad attempt to tarnish the technology.

[acquafredda]

I believe that as journalists who need to reach many views it is not important to specify what is what, maybe because also the audience is not very prepared too.
Whatever the reason I hate these click-baiting which runs on a global scale, we only can point out the mistake.

[Lucius]

You seem to have misunderstood the article a bit, because if you read it in its entirety you may notice that the author is referring to the famous saying "[People] are definitely one of the weak links," and this is quite evident in this case. Although some ignore the magnitude of this data leak, only the future will show what the consequences will be for some people whose data have become publicly available.

While of course no one can say that Bitcoin is compromised in this way, indirectly people are losing confidence in companies that provide various crypto services - and Ledger was one of the very important players in that market.

[coolcoinz]

It's funny how other people understand or perhaps misunderstand Bitcoin. I guess many of them are not ignorant about Bitcoin. They're simply malicious.

It is obvious Ledger =/= Bitcoin. In the same manner that Bitcoin =/= Silk Road, Bitcoin =/= AlphaBay, Bitcoin =/= Mt. Gox, and so on. And yet they make it appear as if Bitcoin is all these. Bad reporting to say the least. Or perhaps bad attempt to tarnish the technology.

I don't believe those writers are so dumb. They must know this is not an issue with bitcoin but they call it like that to gain more response and to make people read it. If they titled it "Ledger data leak" most people wouldn't read it because most people don't even know there are hardware wallets for bitcoin and you can see it even on this forum when bitcoin users ask if they should buy one and if hardware wallets are more secure than desktop wallets.
So, the journalists employ the same good old tactics, just like they did when they called ransomware "A bitcoin scam or a bitcoin hack".

[bbc.reporter]

You seem to have misunderstood the article a bit, because if you read it in its entirety you may notice that the author is referring to the famous saying "[People] are definitely one of the weak links," and this is quite evident in this case. Although some ignore the magnitude of this data leak, only the future will show what the consequences will be for some people whose data have become publicly available.

While of course no one can say that Bitcoin is compromised in this way, indirectly people are losing confidence in companies that provide various crypto services - and Ledger was one of the very important players in that market.

This is clearly a mainstream media outlet's attempt to maniplulate the minds of the people who are not into to the cryptospace. Similar to @acquafredda, this is clickbait.

[Karartma1]

It's funny how other people understand or perhaps misunderstand Bitcoin. I guess many of them are not ignorant about Bitcoin. They're simply malicious.

It is obvious Ledger =/= Bitcoin. In the same manner that Bitcoin =/= Silk Road, Bitcoin =/= AlphaBay, Bitcoin =/= Mt. Gox, and so on. And yet they make it appear as if Bitcoin is all these. Bad reporting to say the least. Or perhaps bad attempt to tarnish the technology.

I don't believe those writers are so dumb. They must know this is not an issue with bitcoin but they call it like that to gain more response and to make people read it. If they titled it "Ledger data leak" most people wouldn't read it because most people don't even know there are hardware wallets for bitcoin and you can see it even on this forum when bitcoin users ask if they should buy one and if hardware wallets are more secure than desktop wallets.
So, the journalists employ the same good old tactics, just like they did when they called ransomware "A bitcoin scam or a bitcoin hack".

You see that's the whole point of this whole discussion as I believe there's really zero reasons to catch readers with these methods. Like most of you already specified, this has nothing to do with bitcoin and that's the only thing that matters.

[buwaytress]

Am a past customer of both Trevor and Ledger, and still using both, I knew it was a matter of time before this happened. Ledger responded with a joke(?) Glock plus ledger combo but anyway, we all knew this was coming.

Least those of us in the forum realise this only strengthens all the reminders we constantly tell each other not to trust centralised services. Use them as we have to, but expect to be attacked like this.

P.s. neither of my throwaway emails have received any of the phishing msgs. Waiting... =)

[acquafredda]

What I really hate is that from a company which bases is business model on trust and security, some shit like this should be the last thing to happen! You cannot be securing the world's coins while you are not even able to secure your users' data! Come on.

[Harlot]

There you have it: another great clickbait attempt. If Ledger does not know how to handle sensitive users data what does this have to do with bitcoin weaknesses?
That is not some bitcoin weakness

Well for me its kinda related to Bitcoin since it is a hardware wallet where you can store your Bitcoin at, we can't also just pick up some things here where we see we don't have a problem of just for debate/reasoning out purposes since we are directly affected on what happened to Ledger which they need to address. For me things like this that revolves around Bitcoin can be considered as a weakness since thousands of users are affected and I think what Forbes is saying is true that most of the users who have their data leaked will not be happy about what had happened.

[Karartma1]

There you have it: another great clickbait attempt. If Ledger does not know how to handle sensitive users data what does this have to do with bitcoin weaknesses?
That is not some bitcoin weakness

Well for me its kinda related to Bitcoin since it is a hardware wallet where you can store your Bitcoin at, we can't also just pick up some things here where we see we don't have a problem of just for debate/reasoning out purposes since we are directly affected on what happened to Ledger which they need to address. For me things like this that revolves around Bitcoin can be considered as a weakness since thousands of users are affected and I think what Forbes is saying is true that most of the users who have their data leaked will not be happy about what had happened.

Your comment doesn't make any sense. Ledger's fault is not related to any bitcoin weaknesses because there are none! Ledger's data breach is solely dependant on Ledger's lack of security when handling sensitive users' data.

[Harlot]

Well for me its kinda related to Bitcoin since it is a hardware wallet where you can store your Bitcoin at, we can't also just pick up some things here where we see we don't have a problem of just for debate/reasoning out purposes since we are directly affected on what happened to Ledger which they need to address. For me things like this that revolves around Bitcoin can be considered as a weakness since thousands of users are affected and I think what Forbes is saying is true that most of the users who have their data leaked will not be happy about what had happened.

Your comment doesn't make any sense. Ledger's fault is not related to any bitcoin weaknesses because there are none! Ledger's data breach is solely dependant on Ledger's lack of security when handling sensitive users' data.

So are you just saying that a hardware wallet that stores Bitcoin is not related to Bitcoin? I know ledger is a company and is benefiting from Bitcoin users but it doesn't mean that they aren't related to Bitcoin just because they aren't the developers of Bitcoin. Hardware wallets regardless of what brand they are are stll related to Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies in general since they are widely use in the industry thus I am counting them as related to Bitcoin's weakness. It's the same thing as Electrum having vulnerabilities in their old versions and is heavily link to Bitcoin.

[Karartma1]

I believe we speak different languages: I don't care if Ledger is related to bitcoin because they produce hardware wallets. The point here is that I can't stand that somebody argues on bitcoin weaknesses which are not related to the bitcoin protocol itself but rather on the complete lack of care that a company uses when managing users' data.
Am I clear on that?

[Efarilino]

I believe that as journalists who need to reach many views it is not important to specify what is what, maybe because also the audience is not very prepared too.
Whatever the reason I hate these click-baiting which runs on a global scale, we only can point out the mistake.

It's a shame. It's just a sign of complete incompetence in the services we provide. I don't know how people can even buy their wallets...

[Sithara007]

There is a lot of propaganda going on in the cryptocurrency sector related to hardware wallets. New users get an impression that it is mandatory to go for a hardware wallet, if you want to store your coins securely. I have stored my coins in an online wallet for the last 7 years and I have never faced any issue. It is much more anonymous, easy and risk-free, compared to using a hardware wallet to store your coin holdings.

[cr1776]

There is a lot of propaganda going on in the cryptocurrency sector related to hardware wallets. New users get an impression that it is mandatory to go for a hardware wallet, if you want to store your coins securely. I have stored my coins in an online wallet for the last 7 years and I have never faced any issue. It is much more anonymous, easy and risk-free, compared to using a hardware wallet to store your coin holdings.

I think you’re right.  The funny thing is, I bought a Trezor back when they came out. I haven’t used it yet. I’m just more confident in cold storage on a computer. I’ve looked at the code etc and don’t NOT trust it, but  just prefer to have the screen and keyboard on a non network connected computer.

[squatter]

There is a lot of propaganda going on in the cryptocurrency sector related to hardware wallets. New users get an impression that it is mandatory to go for a hardware wallet, if you want to store your coins securely. I have stored my coins in an online wallet for the last 7 years and I have never faced any issue.

An online wallet -- do you mean a custodial web wallet like Freewallet? Even if you're using a non-custodial online wallet like Blockchain.com, you're still exposing yourself to MITM browser and malware attacks. It's all well and good until the day you get attacked and lose everything.

It is much more anonymous, easy and risk-free, compared to using a hardware wallet to store your coin holdings.

It's the opposite. Online/web wallets are privacy pitfalls. You're trusting a single third party company with all your data.

The funny thing is, I bought a Trezor back when they came out. I haven’t used it yet. I’m just more confident in cold storage on a computer. I’ve looked at the code etc and don’t NOT trust it, but  just prefer to have the screen and keyboard on a non network connected computer.

I'm the same way -- old school. I'm still not fully comfortable using mobile or hardware wallets.

[acquafredda]

I have stored my coins in an online wallet for the last 7 years and I have never faced any issue. It is much more anonymous, easy and risk-free, compared to using a hardware wallet to store your coin holdings.

Jeez! Do you really understand what you wrote there? As squatter said you are relying on a third party to hold, control, store and manage keys on your behalf! And on the anonymous I would rather not comment to avoid any form of bad language.