Another day, another Bitcoin heist. This time, a spinoff of the currency was attacked by thieves who made off with a lot of virtual cash.
BlackCoin, a variant of the highly popular Bitcoin digital currency, has run into a bit of trouble this week. About 1.5 million coins were stolen after hackers tampered with a glitch at currency exchange company Crypto Rush.
The hack involved temporarily inflating the amount of coins available in accounts by about 22 million, then withdrawing the coins from the exchange.
The withdrawn amount of over 1 million coins totaled to about $70,000, or 120 bitcoins. The exchange company, Crytpo Rush, is trying to figure out how to pay its users back after the theft.
“Once again we apologize for our own issues with both downtime and late
upgrades of the client,” a representative of Crypto Rush said in a forum post. “We’ll post more when we know how we can pay back affected users or get some compensation for this massive, massive loss. 100 BTC doesn’t just come out of thin air, so please be patient while we make this right.”It seems as though every week a new Bitcoin theft occurs, bringing up the question: how secure is this form of digital currency? And when will another exchange shut down due to theft?