Summary: A cyber criminal launched a whole sum of Ethers through a crazy list. We are not talking about a liquid to degrease, but about a form of cyrptocurrency.
Ethereum, a kind of cryptovaluta, knew a giant money robbery. Indeed, an attacker managed to steal unintentionally millions of dollars from startup Coindash. This social trading platform makes it easier to transfer Ethers, the cryptocoin within the Ethereum network. The cybercriminals broke into the website and then adapted the Ethereum payment address. For example, the hacker could unleash millions of dollars at his own expense.
Hack confirmed
Coindash has confirmed the hack on their website and temporarily retrieved its site. The company held a so-called Initial Coin Offer (ICO), a kind of crowd funding action that you buy from a company. In total, investors transferred 43,438.45 from the cryptocoin to the wrong address, which amounts to approximately 6.4 million euros according to the current exchange rate. Afterwards, the hackers transfer the money to their own account. A simple but lucrative list.
5.5 million euros were still collected before the hack took place. Less than four minutes after the hack, the incident was already noticed by Coindash, but then the evil had already been done. The startup calls on the bumped investors to fill in this form.
Inside job?
"We want to take the time to see what has just happened," says Coindash spokesperson against Motherboard. "Afterwards, we will inform our customers as soon as possible and compensate for the losses suffered." The trading platform emphasizes waiting another time to send Ethers. "We are still attacked."
Is it really a hack, or was the burglary set up game? On the social networking site Reddit, users speculate that Coindash's owners dropped millions of dollars while blaming a fictional anonymous hacker. The investors are already furious and claim their money back.
Ethers?
The Ether is a crypto coin, just like the Bitcoin. These digital cents are also traded according to a network called Ethereum, similar to the blockchain. At the core, this is simply a technology that captures and discloses transactions. Not only a money transfer, but also sending a message or saving a document is seen as a transaction. In principle, therefore, no intermediary is required, because Ethereum itself acts as a control.
You can use Ethers as a means of payment. To send and receive, you will need an Ether wallet. Yet Ether is more than cyrptocurrency: it's a crypto-equity. You can also conclude contracts with Ethers or send a message. These applications are called the Ethereum network dApps, or decentralized apps. Compare Ethers so earlier with a kind of fuel that drives the entire network.
Not the first time
Last week, the biggest Ethereum trade fair in South Korea was hacked. How much booty the hackers then made is not known, but at least it's about tens of thousands of dollars. The hackers managed to log in to user accounts and then transfer their Ethers to another account.