Topic: Bitstamp hack: Some analysis (Read 633 times)

+1

They are splitting updates between Nejc Kodrič's twitter and Bitstamp's twitter. Any important updates should be made easy to find on the main page.

It would be nice if they updated the main page again. I know they are sending out twitter updates, but it seems to be starting a slight panic with some customers. I can see why after Gox, there's a bit of hesitation, but I think they will pull out of this. The security of their systems though I think are still in question, it seems to allude that they didn't have enough safeguards in place.

You are right! However, we don't know the actual assets owned by Bitstamp...

what percentage loss is not relevant as none of it are their money. a percent of loss over their own assets (not clients') would be more helpful

Alert: Bitstamp decorated the service suspension page two days ago, this is a bad signal. It means that Bitstamp is not going to reopen in short period!

Some people always said in this forum that Bistamp lost 17% of client's BTC due to the hack on Jan 4.

This is wrong! Here is the main cold wallet of Bitstamp: https://blockchain.info/address/1JoktQJhCzuCQkt3GnQ8Xddcq4mUgNyXEa

From the earliest transaction of the address: https://blockchain.info/tx/8f1d3a8ef6b2d4a25d2f499279e01518b4770819ccbc39a765c4c326170c61b3

the source addresses and destination address are all cold wallets of Bitstamp.  The total amount of these cold wallets are 135056+5237+5652+5785+6392+6907+8123+7977+6394+6129+5975=199627.

The 18664 BTC lost is about 18664/(18664+199627) = 8.55% of total client's BTC of Bitstamp. Not 17%! Also, there may be more cold wallet address of Bitstamp that we don't know, so the proportion of BTC loss may even lower than 8.55%

For fiat part, an exchange usually holds likely equal fiat value of BTC reserve, therefore, the total value loss of Bitstamp is 18K BTC / (BTC total reserve + fiat) < 4.28%

Based on the fact that the hack lasts for over 24 hours, we know that Bitstamp did not have any monitor program on their hot wallets!
 
Bitcoins flow in/out hot wallet are always traceable and should be monitored periodically. For flow in: there are only client coin deposit, for flow out: only to Bitstamp cold wallets and clients' withdrawal address!

Therefore, for a period time T(1 hour for example): the total flow in amount to hot wallets in T + the previous balance before T of hot wallets = amount flows to clod wallet in T + balance left in hot wallets + amount flows to clients' withdrawal addresses in T

Both l-value and r-value must always equal all the time, otherwise, alarm must be issued for human intervention. The monitor program is so simple to implement. Unfortunately, Bitstamp did not have a similar monitor program. If they had, the loss would be much lower!