Author

Topic: BTC-e Hacked by Russians!! Price hits $60/BTC!!! (Read 5039 times)

legendary
Activity: 1713
Merit: 1029
from https://btc-e.com/news/81:

Quote
Dear users of the Exchange Btc-e.com

The exchange is not going to close. We will refund all losses from our reserves.

Neither the servers nor the database were compromised. There were no SQL injections.

At 04:07 MSK (GMT+4) our LR API Secret Key was compromised. It's 16 uppercase, lowercase letters and digits. They may have bruteforced it for long.

Using the key the hacker imitated LR deposits from many accounts and bought up Bitcoins, Namecoins and Litecoins.

We lost our daily volume, approx. 4500 BTC. The attacker couldn't withdraw more
as most BTC were distributed over several offline wallets.

At 10:30 we restored the database to the state it was at 04:00, right before the attack. All trades after 4:00 are reverted.

People who attempted withdrawals before 04:00 MSK will get their funds withdrawn later today.

For people who deposited BTC, LTC and NMC after 04:00 MSK the funds will be put to their balances before market opens.
We are working on the scripts for this.

If you deposited USD after 04:00 MSK you should send us your login, amount and payment system used by email or PM.

Our plan:

1. The trade will be disabled until we restore the balances to the point before market crash.

2. After that, the trade and deposit/withdrawal will be back on, approx. within 1-2 days.

Icq - 610112128
Skype - btc-e.support
E-mail - [email protected]
full member
Activity: 210
Merit: 100
I believe the U.S. Secret Service only gets involved when the physical paper currencies are involved. So say, someone is printing counterfeit Greenbacks in their basement, stuffing them into envelopes and mailing them out to purchase bitcoins from unsuspecting forum users.

Eventually, those counterfeits will provide the agents a nice collection of fingerprints and DNA to start busting down doors.
sr. member
Activity: 283
Merit: 250
I didn't realize that everyone's USD account balances were untouched... interesting. Are you aware of any case law relating to exploiting electronic representations of dollars elsewhere? I'd be interested... I think such things would probably have bearing on the eventual regulation of exchanges.

No idea but I am sure someone somewhere has falsified their USD balance on a brokerage account, or other non bank financial entity (like PayPal).  My guess is that despite these not being banks the Secret Service would investigate.  That would be your precedent.  Maybe some lawyer type can find something. 

At least for this recent case of fraud: http://www.arabnews.com/prosecutor-iowa-based-ceo-carried-out-200m-fraud, the FBI investigated and it was viewed as embezzlement/fraud not counterfeiting. Here it was an insider, I'm curious how an external attacker's actions would be prosecuted.
hero member
Activity: 546
Merit: 500
No idea but I am sure someone somewhere has falsified their USD balance on a brokerage account, or other non bank financial entity (like PayPal).  My guess is that despite these not being banks the Secret Service would investigate.  That would be your precedent.  Maybe some lawyer type can find something. 


I am going to guess stolen credit cards.
donator
Activity: 1218
Merit: 1079
Gerald Davis
I didn't realize that everyone's USD account balances were untouched... interesting. Are you aware of any case law relating to exploiting electronic representations of dollars elsewhere? I'd be interested... I think such things would probably have bearing on the eventual regulation of exchanges.

No idea but I am sure someone somewhere has falsified their USD balance on a brokerage account, or other non bank financial entity (like PayPal).  My guess is that despite these not being banks the Secret Service would investigate.  That would be your precedent.  Maybe some lawyer type can find something. 
sr. member
Activity: 283
Merit: 250
I didn't realize that everyone's USD account balances were untouched... interesting. Are you aware of any case law relating to exploiting electronic representations of dollars elsewhere? I'd be interested... I think such things would probably have bearing on the eventual regulation of exchanges.

-bgc
donator
Activity: 1218
Merit: 1079
Gerald Davis
They didn't steal any USD.  They added fake USD to their account and used that to purchase goods (BTC) leaving the victims stuck with counterfeit USD.  

I agree the Secret Service likely won't investigate it because a) nobody will ask them to and b) the exchange in is another country.
sr. member
Activity: 283
Merit: 250
* Technically the hackers actions could be best described as counterfeiting USD dollars.  Those counterfeit USD were then used to buy BTC.

This argument is a good one for getting LE involved in the US... but I doubt you can make the theft=counterfeiting argument successfully enough in this case.
donator
Activity: 1218
Merit: 1079
Gerald Davis
When Gox got hacked in June 2011, the media frequently reported as fact that the value of BTC's dropped to a penny.

What will happen when the media reports as a matter of fact that the value of BTC's just eclipsed their all-time high?  That alone will make a lot of people say "holy shit" and take a double-take, even if it's total bullshit.

If Bitcoin had a PR department you could spin this as "USD suffer a massive hack today* and in the flight to safety Bitcoin spiked to an all time high.  Bitcoin the new reserve currency for the world's reserve currency?"

* Technically the hackers actions could be best described as counterfeiting USD dollars.  Those counterfeit USD were then used to buy BTC.
vip
Activity: 1386
Merit: 1140
The Casascius 1oz 10BTC Silver Round (w/ Gold B)
When Gox got hacked in June 2011, the media frequently reported as fact that the value of BTC's dropped to a penny.

What will happen when the media reports as a matter of fact that the value of BTC's just eclipsed their all-time high?  That alone will make a lot of people say "holy shit" and take a double-take, even if it's total bullshit.
sr. member
Activity: 448
Merit: 250
A block with 94k BTC of trades just after the hack 191622, gut feeling the money's gone AWOL.
legendary
Activity: 1190
Merit: 1000
www.bitcointrading.com
The categories on bitcointalk make no sense.. I post about a Currency Exchange in Currency Exchange and get moved to Service Discussion, when the discussion on this currency exchange service is taking place in speculation?
Discussion about BTC-E takes place in the general marketplace section, which is perfectly valid: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/btc-ecom-exchange-bitcoin-litecoin-namecoin-usdbtc-fee-02-40889
The thread in speculation is about the recent huge buy/hack/whatchamacallit.
This section is for actual OTC trading, not layman speculation.

The Service Discussion section is for OTC trading?
Sorry, I meant Currency Exchange. Somehow I disregarded the fact that the thread was moved when making that post. You get my point, though.

I totally get your point, I was just being a smartass Wink
hero member
Activity: 560
Merit: 501
The categories on bitcointalk make no sense.. I post about a Currency Exchange in Currency Exchange and get moved to Service Discussion, when the discussion on this currency exchange service is taking place in speculation?
Discussion about BTC-E takes place in the general marketplace section, which is perfectly valid: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/btc-ecom-exchange-bitcoin-litecoin-namecoin-usdbtc-fee-02-40889
The thread in speculation is about the recent huge buy/hack/whatchamacallit.
This section is for actual OTC trading, not layman speculation.

The Service Discussion section is for OTC trading?
Sorry, I meant Currency Exchange. Somehow I disregarded the fact that the thread was moved when making that post. You get my point, though.
member
Activity: 98
Merit: 10
(:firstbits => "1mantis")
Bwaa ha ha ha! BTC-E is going DOWN BITCHES!

I knew it wouldn't last!
legendary
Activity: 1190
Merit: 1000
www.bitcointrading.com
The categories on bitcointalk make no sense.. I post about a Currency Exchange in Currency Exchange and get moved to Service Discussion, when the discussion on this currency exchange service is taking place in speculation?
Discussion about BTC-E takes place in the general marketplace section, which is perfectly valid: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/btc-ecom-exchange-bitcoin-litecoin-namecoin-usdbtc-fee-02-40889
The thread in speculation is about the recent huge buy/hack/whatchamacallit.
This section is for actual OTC trading, not layman speculation.

The Service Discussion section is for OTC trading?
hero member
Activity: 560
Merit: 501
The categories on bitcointalk make no sense.. I post about a Currency Exchange in Currency Exchange and get moved to Service Discussion, when the discussion on this currency exchange service is taking place in speculation?
Discussion about BTC-E takes place in the general marketplace section, which is perfectly valid: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/btc-ecom-exchange-bitcoin-litecoin-namecoin-usdbtc-fee-02-40889
The thread in speculation is about the recent huge buy/hack/whatchamacallit.
This section is for actual OTC trading, not layman speculation.
legendary
Activity: 1190
Merit: 1000
www.bitcointrading.com
The categories on bitcointalk make no sense.. I post about a Currency Exchange in Currency Exchange and get moved to Service Discussion, when the discussion on this currency exchange service is taking place in speculation?
legendary
Activity: 1190
Merit: 1000
www.bitcointrading.com
YEAH LET'S MAKE ANOTHER THREAD

EDIT: IN THE CURRENCY EXCHANGE SECTION
Isn't it.. a currency exchange?
hero member
Activity: 560
Merit: 501
YEAH LET'S MAKE ANOTHER THREAD

EDIT: IN THE CURRENCY EXCHANGE SECTION
legendary
Activity: 1190
Merit: 1000
www.bitcointrading.com
legendary
Activity: 1190
Merit: 1000
www.bitcointrading.com
You guys watching this right now?  EPIC.

btc-e.com

edit: locking my thread, there's others like it.
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