Another Bitcoin fraud coming from hackers has hit a Slovenian cryptocurrency mining company by the name NiceHash.
It is alleged the hackers went away with almost $64 million worth of Bitcoins belonging to the customers of NiceHash.
Officials from the company have been met with the menace with a lot of surprises as no one had anticipated such a blow in such a time.
The whole scenario is creating a lot of anxiety among the users who had their Bitcoin stored in their wallet which is connected to the platform.
Many believe the hack is an inside job or perhaps an exit scam because the value of Bitcoin has skyrocketed in the last few months.
Context: Bitcoin's Success
Bitcoin has become the topic of the day to most investors having its value surpassing the $19,000 mark within the last month.
Bitcoin has skyrocketed since the beginning of the year when its value was hovering only $1,000.
This has seen many people gaining an interest in investing in the cryptocurrency, as it has a lot of promise in its returns.
The people who invested in Bitcoin long before its value reached to the current market value are now enjoying the profits and reaping the benefits of their investment.
Since Bitcoin is stored in wallets that are digitally locked and controlled, the security of the wallets used is paramount.
This is after many hackers globally have started targeting the wallets in a bid to steal the Bitcoin funds stored within them.
Hackers Capitalizing on Rise of Bitcoin
In the recent past, an increase in cases has been reported of people and companies losing their Bitcoins to hackers. Although most of the cases are yet to be solved, some have been followed with the perpetrators brought to book.
Hackers, too, have evolved in their methods of stealing from victims.
Initially, it was as though all the hackers involved in this practice were black hat hackers, but this is no more.
Currently, it is seen that even the black hat hackers are pretending to be white hat hackers in order to gain access to their victims' online wallets.
Hackers have used phishing tactics to carry out these operations.
It is known that a phishing link comes as a friendly email containing a message that lures the user to open the link that comes with it.
Once the user has clicked on the link, the hacker can then install the necessary malware to gain access to the computer.
Hackers are also known to use keyloggers to get the personal credentials that are used to lock the user accounts belonging to customers.
This and many other methods used by the hackers put online banking platforms at risk of being hacked and compromised.
Since digital currencies are taking over the financial world in this century, the companies using cryptocurrencies as their primary form of monetary transaction are obligated to uphold solid cybersecurity systems.
The continued improvement in online security is a big factor for these companies to gain the trust of their customers.
NiceHash Breach as it Happened
In the case of NiceHash, company officials notified customers of the recent security breach through their online social media channels.
The announcement was not well-received from customers who had lost almost all their Bitcoins as a result of the breach.
Many customers fear the company will not be able to repay the users their lost Bitcoins as it took the company days to eventually re-open the platform after the breach.
There are also concerns that the company will end up with an exit scam, perhaps to later return with a different name in the market.
According to statements issued by the officials of the company, NiceHash was forced to stop all its daily operations to investigate the data breach.
Officials added that the company is working to give a detailed report on the exact number of Bitcoins lost in the attack.
NiceHash operates by utilizing the hardware of users' devices, mostly the computers' processing power. This requires a software to be pre-installed before using the service.
The higher the processing power of the computer, the higher its ability to mine, according to NiceHash.
The company is working closely with cybersecurity experts and law enforcement to try and formulate a comeback and be able to recover the lost Bitcoins.
NiceHash has said it is working round the clock to bring back their services to customers.
They also reported that they are working very hard to tighten the security of their system to keep customers safe from any future attacks of this kind.
But many cybersecurity analysts are blaming the company for keeping large amounts of Bitcoin funds all in one wallet.
According to them, this is a weak strategy and keeps them at risk of the hackers who are given an advantage in compromising the account.
It is not yet clear if the company will compensate the users of their lost Bitcoins as they await the investigation to be completed. It is also not clear if the company has any leads at the moment to track down the hackers and recover the lost Bitcoins.
At the moment, NiceHash's user base is left to wait and hope for the best as events continue unfolding.
There are high chances that the hackers have already withdrawn all the Bitcoins and erased all the transactions to remain anonymous. For now, only time will reveal what will happen at the end of it all to see if NiceHash users will recover their funds.
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