[2015-01-06] Bitstamp exchange hacked, $5M worth of bitcoin stolen

[zakoliverz]

http://www.zdnet.com/article/bitstamp-bitcoin-exchange-suspended-amid-hack-concerns-heres-what-we-know/

The price of a single bitcoin on the Mt. Gox exchange at its peak was about $1,240. But, after its alleged breach, the bitcoin market crashed to half its value, and continued for months to slowly decline. Despite its volatility, many companies are lining up to support bitcoin -- once seen as an unstable virtual currency used by criminals, now becoming increasingly mainstream.

Many took to news-sharing and social media sites to express concern about the handling of the situation, a little over a year after the largest bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox folded, following its claims that hackers had stolen millions of dollars worth of bitcoins.

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[LiteCoinGuy]

http://www.coindesk.com/bitstamp-claims-roughly-19000-btc-lost-hot-wallet-hack/

[LiteCoinGuy]

http://www.zdnet.com/article/bitstamp-bitcoin-exchange-suspended-amid-hack-concerns-heres-what-we-know/

http://gizmodo.com/one-of-the-biggest-bitcoin-exchanges-just-went-dark-aft-1677499475

[fcuk]

This is ridiculous. Hard to believe that such a huge exchange would allow this to happen. Do they know what went wrong at the moment? Wonder if it's another inside job like I'm assuming gox was?

[jubalix]

It probably was an inside job to some extent. Some menial but smart guy was not really paid enough and said screw it, it worth the risk and gave himself a $5 Mill pay day.

It looks like they are going to have to multi sig everything.

Another thing I do when sending is to send a very small test amount to an address first just to see if it gets there. Once I see that hit, then I am pretty sure everything is ok and send the larger amount. Sure there is an overhead but hey you pay to minimize risk.

[voephilis]

It probably was an inside job to some extent. Some menial but smart guy was not really paid enough and said screw it, it worth the risk and gave himself a $5 Mill pay day.

It looks like they are going to have to multi sig everything.

Another thing I do when sending is to send a very small test amount to an address first just to see if it gets there. Once I see that hit, then I am pretty sure everything is ok and send the larger amount. Sure there is an overhead but hey you pay to minimize risk.

Yes, that`s all users can do. Exchanges should use their fees to make trading safer!

[XCoinCall]

Yes, that`s all users can do. Exchanges should use their fees to make trading safer!

Couldn't agree more. Some of them are, but the reality is that it's basically impossible to be invulnerable.

[polynesia]

All I get is a feeling of deja vu.

[ClutchThese]

I guess this explains the current situation with the price of BTC. It's fallen below $300... a price i've never seen since i've been investing in it.  It's sad that it's gotten this low. This year should be an interesting one to say the least. We will see if BTC is here to stay or if it's on its last leg.

[LiteCoinGuy]

I guess this explains the current situation with the price of BTC. It's fallen below $300... a price i've never seen since i've been investing in it.  It's sad that it's gotten this low. This year should be an interesting one to say the least. We will see if BTC is here to stay or if it's on its last leg.

since 2009 it is here to stay...2015 wont change that.

[iqbal14st]

http://www.zdnet.com/article/bitstamp-bitcoin-exchange-suspended-amid-hack-concerns-heres-what-we-know/

The price of a single bitcoin on the Mt. Gox exchange at its peak was about $1,240. But, after its alleged breach, the bitcoin market crashed to half its value, and continued for months to slowly decline. Despite its volatility, many companies are lining up to support bitcoin -- once seen as an unstable virtual currency used by criminals, now becoming increasingly mainstream.

Many took to news-sharing and social media sites to express concern about the handling of the situation, a little over a year after the largest bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox folded, following its claims that hackers had stolen millions of dollars worth of bitcoins.

I also hear they lose up to 5 BTC,, wow ..
it's not a small amount ..

[smoothie]

This is ridiculous. Hard to believe that such a huge exchange would allow this to happen. Do they know what went wrong at the moment? Wonder if it's another inside job like I'm assuming gox was?

I agree it is ridiculous.

Once again an exchange holding tens of millions of customer funds can't properly secure their user's funds on their own servers.

Pretty pathetic. It is one thing to have a bug in the protocol of bitcoin that allows this to happen and another to have the bug reside on your system implementation.

Once again it is either incompetence or laziness.

Gox part 2 for now.

[smoothie]

It probably was an inside job to some extent. Some menial but smart guy was not really paid enough and said screw it, it worth the risk and gave himself a $5 Mill pay day.

It looks like they are going to have to multi sig everything.

Another thing I do when sending is to send a very small test amount to an address first just to see if it gets there. Once I see that hit, then I am pretty sure everything is ok and send the larger amount. Sure there is an overhead but hey you pay to minimize risk.

I agree with your approach.

Even when cashing out never send too large of an amount to an exchange.

Just recently around the last few days of 2014 I was tempted to send a large chunk of BTC to bitstamp to speculate with.

Thankfully my family time and coin business kept too busy to even get around to sending coins to BitStamp.

Yeah sure the price of bitcoin fell and I likely could have sold higher and bought more coins at a lower price but...the pure risk of bitstamp having a screw up like this was worth the lost opportunity to speculate.

BitstampBTC and BitstampUSD are worth nothing if they can't make good on all withdraws once they reopen.