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Mining "Renting" Service Nicehash Hacked; $68M Routed From User Wallets

Raevenlord

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Another high-profile hack has hit Bitcoin, as cryptocurrency mining pool Nicehash has confirmed that they've suffered a hack which has rendered users' wallets with the service to be emptied. The heist, currently valued at more than $68M, transferred 4,736.4281 BTC in total to the unknown party's (the perpetrator's, almost certainly) wallet. A single transaction of 4,655.25349748 BTC was the most high-profile one to take place, and has left Nicehash users in the cold.

In a post on Reddit, Nicehash representatives confirmed the heist, stating that "Unfortunately, there has been a security breach involving NiceHash website. We are currently investigating the nature of the incident and, as a result, we are stopping all operations for the next 24 hours. Importantly, our payment system was compromised and the contents of the NiceHash Bitcoin wallet have been stolen. We are working to verify the precise number of BTC taken."





"Unfortunately" seems to be too much of a sweet, sugarcoated word for the unmitigated disaster this is. However, the outfit says they have kept their eyes in the ball, in that "Clearly, this is a matter of deep concern and we are working hard to rectify the matter in the coming days. In addition to undertaking our own investigation, the incident has been reported to the relevant authorities and law enforcement and we are co-operating with them as a matter of urgency."

Nicehash was one of the foremost ways for users to put their hardware to usage in mining coins. Slightly different from a standard pool, where users contribute their own computing resources to that of a whole in order to increase chances of mining entire blocks, Nicehash worked on a mining power "renting" philosophy, where users contributed their hardware resources and hashing power towards mining workloads that were purchased by interested parties. This let users mine without having to micromanage their mining platform, and let renters of hashing power free from having to invest in hardware that would lose out on value eventually.

Nicehash has also warned users to change their passwords, as a matter of precaution, and has vowed to review and increase their security measures... But that may come slightly with a "too little, too late" taste to it for former and prospective users of the service. It remains to be seen whether they can bounce back from this event or not.

It's interesting to note that Bitcoin's value seems impervious to the event, however; the cryptocurrency has kept on soaring in value after the hack was discovered and announced.



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"It's interesting to note that Bitcoin's value seems impervious to the event" - That's because the event only affects miners not traders so it's actually good for crypto value as it disrupts supply. That doesn't however mean there won't be a drop when the news spreads and people who don't understand it panic.
 
The stolen BTC themselves are now worth $10 million more in little under 24hrs, from when they were first stolen :D
 
So aside from creating shortages in GPU market, cryptocurrency also promotes greed, stealing and ransoming. I bet the creators didn't think of this.
 
I can be sure government is supporting these hackers.
 
So aside from creating shortages in GPU market, cryptocurrency also promotes greed, stealing and ransoming. I bet the creators didn't think of this.

no currency is immune to greed, stealing and ransoming. If you want to eliminate that, you would need to annihilate the human race.

I can be sure government is supporting these hackers.

Probably Putin's way of financing his next troll factory
 
Good.

I hope mining ****ing dies!
 
Good.

I hope mining ****ing dies!

Not good as people on our very forum were hurt. It won't die anyways. We are going to have to learn to deal with it. If anything, the news headline will probably draw more moths to the flame. :laugh:

is is possible, that the hole bitcoin network works together and never accept any transaction from this wallt again? it is better to freeze all this coins instead of letting the hackers do what ever they want to do.

Not without signifigant protocol alterations that will never happen, no.
 
Damn, had $50 in the nicehash wallet. :(
 
Luckily I only had any £20 worth that I've been slowly building up, sucks for people with large amounts in a nicehash wallet :(
 
This is only an issue if you haven't transfered your bitcoins to your own private wallet yet in which case it's your own fucking fault. No one keeps bitcoins on an online wallet except if you want to get them stolen.
 
i lost a fair bit.. least i think i have..

mining is just what miners do.. most people are just buying the stuff and watching its value shoot up.. mining is in fact the wrong way to make crypto money..

i am gonna call it the bitcoin black hole.. it will suck up all investment money until there is none left.. then we will have another financial big bang..

i am still pissed of at losing some though.. not just at what i have lost but also at what i aint gonna make..

trog
 
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I don't think we have enough details to direct fault yet, although it seems incredibly negligent to not have safeguards in place to prevent bulk withdrawls of the entire Nicehash account.

This thread has been pretty anti-miner so far, but if you read through some of Reddit it's hard to not feel sorry for people that lost sizable amounts of money. The whole NH system with withdrawl fees really pushed keeping money in the online wallet as long as possible (which is more support for the inside job theory). So people that had large mining setups and withdrew say monthly and were been trying to do the safe thing with periodic withdrawls still got nailed for thousands.

It's even more amazing that Bitcoin went up another couple thousand dollars in the last day since it happened. It shows how super-speculative it is and there are some big money folks (and/or governments) that are likely manipulating it for profits. There's no other reason for Bitcoin to go from $600 last year to $15,000 today. Good while it lasts but it's only a matter of time until the bubble pops and the bottom drops out.
 
Choose your evil.

Modern banking or the wild west. UK banks have been stress tested to see if they can survive another crash (they can) and in that respect, modern banking systems are fundamentally safer places.

Crypto investment is the modern equivalent of the old US gold rush. There is little security but the amount of continued investment (by uber rich hedge funds) just pushes BTC up. Meanwhile, lack of any oversight or regulation makes it a hackers dream.

As folk have said - you need to be very sensible with crypto sourced wealth because by it's tech nature - it's liable to tech crime.

It doesn't serve any miner 'right' that they lost through this but it should serve as a warning.

I'm still perplexed how we live in a world where wealth is created from nothing but popular interest. Convert crypto wealth to schools, hospitals and donuts and call it quits.
 
Where the coins are sitting at the moment https://bitinfocharts.com/bitcoin/address/1EnJHhq8Jq8vDuZA5ahVh6H4t6jh1mB4rq

Might even have been a inside hit n run by nicehash.. @ ~57.7M $ (at the moment of transfer) even I would have been tempted

I was about to post the same link. Question now is, what can the perpetrator(s) really do with it? I'm sure there are many hawks watching this address. It would be kind of like stealing the world's biggest diamond, but everyone can see where it goes as soon as you try to do anything with it...

Personally, I ran Nicehash and my payments went directly into my Coinbase account, so there was zip in my Nicehash wallet... however I probably lost the ~$130 worth of BTC I was due to receive this Friday. Now my 1070s are doing bugger all while I wait to see what happens with Nicehash before moving on.
 
Now imagine if those virus / spamware alerts on their software weren't really false after all.
 
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