BTC.com Hacked: Over $3M Have Been Stolen
- The Bitcoin mining platform, BTC.com, has been officially exploited, and over $3 million has been stolen by the attackers.
- The incident caused BTC.com to lose digital assets worth around $700,000, owned by the company’s clients.
- Around $2.3 million in assets owned by its parent company, BIT Mining Limited, were also lost.
- BTC.com revealed that the incident has been reported to China’s Shenzhen law enforcement authorities.
2022 has witnessed a record number of cybercrimes in the crypto industry and is probably one of the worst years for the industry, with many firms going out of business and billions of dollars of investors’ money stolen. The latest victim was the Bitcoin mining pool, BTC.com, which revealed about the cyber attack on December 26.
The attack, which occurred on December 3, caused BTC.com to lose digital assets worth around $700,000, owned by the company’s clients, and around $2.3 million in assets owned by its parent company, BIT Mining Limited.
The official press release by BTC.com revealed that the incident has been reported to China’s Shenzhen law enforcement authorities, and fortunately, some of the stolen funds have already been secured with the local as well as the company’s internal coordination.
The authorities launched an investigation on December 23 that started with collecting evidence and have urged further coordination with relevant agencies and assistance from BIT Mining. Notably, the announcement has not revealed any details regarding the attack vendor. The press release reads:
“In the wake of discovering this cyberattack, the Company has implemented technology to better block and intercept hackers. BTC.com is currently operating its business as usual, and apart from its digital asset services, its client fund services are unaffected.”
Cybercrimes are becoming more sophisticated and more frequent. In the crypto space they take several forms, including quick-rich schemes, fake airdrops, false social media giveaways, impersonation of genuine crypto exchanges and lending platforms, as well as other fraudulent activities like romance scams that use crypto assets as a lure.
While regulatory agencies around the world are trying to come up with better regulatory frameworks for the industry, bad actors seem to be unaffected. In October this year, hacker(s) targeted Binance’s cross-chain bridge BSC Token Hub, stealing over $570 million worth of funds. More recently, decentralized finance protocol Defrost Finance faced a rug pull attack losing around $12 million in funds.
This month, Microsoft warned the industry of an attack that is particularly targeting crypto startups. The malicious threat, DEV-013, allegedly joins chat groups on the well-known social messaging platform Telegram to gain trust of its target and gain remote access to the victims’ systems.
The tech giant also confirmed that some of the hackers “had a broader knowledge of this specific part of the industry, indicating that they were well prepared and aware of the current challenge the targeted companies may have.”
A crypto journalist with over 3 years of experience in DeFi, NFT, metaverse, etc. Parth has worked with major media outlets in the crypto and finance world and has gained experience and expertise in crypto culture after surviving bear and bull markets over the years.
