User mistakenly takes control of hundreds of wallets containing cryptocurrency Ether, destroying them in a panic while trying to give them back. More than $300m of cryptocurrency has been lost after a series of bugs in a popular digital wallet service led one curious developer to accidentally take control of and then lock up the funds, according to reports. Unlike most cryptocurrency hacks, however, the money wasn’t deliberately taken: it was effectively destroyed by accident. The lost money was in the form of Ether, the tradable currency that fuels the Ethereum distributed app platform, and was kept in digital multi-signature wallets built by a developer called Parity. These wallets require more than one user to enter their key before funds can be transferred. On Tuesday Parity revealed that, while fixing a bug that let hackers steal $32m out of few multi-signature wallets, it had inadvertently left a second flaw in its systems that allowed one user to become the sole owner of every single multi-signature wallet.
This is a very sad incident and the second time that the wallet service provider named Parity made it into the cryptocurrency news big time...this time around it can be considered their own big mistake. One thing for sure, this company is not anymore worth the trust of their clients all over the world. Maybe they actually did not deserved the second wind of trust bestowed by their customers when the first hacking incident happened because it is as if they have not learned enough lessons to be always careful and follow some established protocols when dealing with such a very serious matter involving the many millions under their care.
I am really wondering: Are they not still teenagers who can be thinking of something else while doing their jobs? We are just hoping that the company behind Parity can be able to do something for their clients who lost their Ethereum money or will this not lead to the bankruptcy of Parity? My concern is always with those people who are using Parity on how they can be able to recover their Eth...we are hoping that soon an acceptable solution can be derived for this problem.
This story should also be a big warning to all wallet service providers to never left any stone upturned as far as security is concerned because that is why they are in the business int he first place.