BREAKING: Bitcoin Exchange BitFinex’ Hot Wallet Hacked
BitFinex has just been hacked. They lost their hot wallet to a malicious actor. However, due to security practices only a relatively minimal amount has been lost. BitFinex keeps over 99.5% of its customers deposits in secure multisig wallets, so only 0.5% at most was lost.
BitFinex is a digital currency trading platform and states itself as currently in a beta phase (testing phase), though they have been in the market for a while now.
They have a notable amount of trade and are considered by many to be one of the market leaders.
Customers are being asked to cease depositing cryptocurrency to old deposit addresses. They suspect that their hot wallet keys have been compromised.
They are currently in the processes of creating, what we can only assume, will be a more secure hot wallet. And that they will have further information within the next few hours.
If you use BitFinex it is probably best not to generate a new address and deposit. But just wait for the few hours for a further announcement from the BitFinex team. Err on the side of caution if in doubt.
Customers need not fear any loss. All customer accounts will remain unaffected. BitFinex has stated that they will be absorbing the loss completely.
“The investigation is ongoing, but the amounts in question are relatively small and easily absorbed by Bitfinex. We are working expeditiously to return operations to normal and we will make a more complete disclosure in the coming hours. We have protocols in place for dealing with such compromises and our real-time detection systems performed as expected. We store over 99.5% of our customer assest in mutisig wallets, which remain secure. We thank the community for their patience as we deal with this unfortunate incident.”
Members of the community are reaching out to each other through reddit at r/bitcoin , you can add your voice and opinion to the discussion there or comment below. Will this hack be followed by a dumping of coin and lowering of value, or will the hacker keep the bitcoins as they are? And the public are waiting to hear back from the official source regarding how much was stolen.
Or will the culprit be traced through the block chain and brought to justice? Will BitFinex keep the information and trail of the theft to themselves like how Mt. Gox have done? Or will they reveal more information so members of the public can help them.
