5 place – Tether ($30.9 million, November 19, 2017)
In Tether, experts were developing such a digital currency which was supposed to combine the technologies of blockchain and fiat money. For trading real goods using bitcoin, litecoin, and etherium, it was decided to implement the so-called "US tokens" (USDT) in the ratio $1/1 USDT. In this case, the virtual money could be converted back. On November 19, 2017, the main "treasury" wallet of Tether was hacked from which tokens worth $30.9 million were stolen. Despite the fact that the transaction for which the bitcoin address was used was irreversible, thanks to the measures taken, the hacker could not withdraw the stolen money in ordinary currency or bitcoin.
4 place – Ethereum ($31 million, July 20, 2017)
In the Ethereum network, launched in 2014, on July 20 last year, 153,037 tokens were stolen worth $31 million. Three very large wallets belonging to such trading platforms as Swarm City and Eternity, as well as online casinos Edgeless, suffered. But then something unprecedented happened: all the stolen funds were returned! The vulnerability of multiple signatures, which caused a change in the ownership of wallets, was eliminated as a result of the quick and coordinated actions of the "white hackers". Other compromised accounts were also protected.
3 place – NiceHash (4,736.42 BTC, December 6, 2017)
NiceHash, a Slovenian company, helps cryptocurrency managers buy and sell computing power. Miners pay for transactions gradually, without making advance payments. All operations are performed in bitcoins. On December 6, 2017, Reddit users were the first to report that access to funds was unavailable, and transactions were not possible. The result of a large-scale cyber attack was the hacking of a wallet and stealing of 4,736.42 bitcoins which at the moment was not returned. Marco Kobal, the CEO and founder of the company, immediately resigned, but the work of NiceHash was resumed. The new team managed to maintain investor confidence and began to strengthen the protection of its systems.
2 place – Bitfinex (119,756 BTC, August 4, 2016)
Bitfinex, the world's largest bitcoin exchange, was attacked in August 2016, also triggered by the vulnerability of multiple signatures. Despite several levels of protection, unknown persons abducted about 119,756 bitcoins from customers' accounts. Presumably, the attacker hacked the 3rd key which belonged to the BitGo blockchain company and used it to sign transactions. However, Bitfinex denied this information saying that none of its servers were hacked. The exchange bought a part of the tokens issued during the ICO, but it was not possible to track where the lost money disappeared. Now Bitfinex is still engaged in the exchange of popular cryptocurrencies (BTC, LTC, ETH) and traditional fiat currencies.
1 place – Mt. Gox (744,408 BTC, June 19, 2011)
Over 6 years have passed since the hacking of Mt. Gox, the world's biggest cryptocurrency exchange platform, but the theft of 744,408 bitcoins remains the largest in history ever. Unlike other cases, it was the result of the work of highly professional hackers using complex vulnerabilities. Having access to the computer of one of the auditors, fraudsters began to reduce the nominal value of bitcoin bringing it to an extremely low level. At that very moment, coins for millions of dollars were sold for pennies. World prices for bitcoin stabilized after a few minutes, but it was too late. Mt. Gox, having lost about 850 thousand bitcoins, declared bankruptcy, hundreds of thousands of people lost their funds. Mark Carpels, CEO of Mt. Gox, was arrested for fraud but subsequently released. Three years later thanks to efforts of the authorities some sum of bitcoins, remained on the old addresses, were restored, but it was spent to reimburse the losses of creditors.
And finally, bitcoin system hacking, 2010
In 2010, there was a bug in the bitcoin software, and an unidentified attacker used it. He managed to create a separate block with a transaction of 184 billion bitcoins, that is, 183,958 billion more than can exist in nature. The reaction to these actions was a hard branching of the block, excluding the branch in which the transaction existed, and at the same time fixing the mentioned error.
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