Earlier this month , a company from Slovenia, NiceHash, providing services for miners, underwent a cyber attack, as a result of which service users lost more than 4'700 bitcoins ($ 62 million). Service users noticed that the service provider disconnected for an abnormally long period of time before the company finally discovered that the security system was hacked.
At the time of the hacking, the general director of the company Marco Kobal, together with the co-founder named Sasa Koch, turned to the users of the service using the live stream on Facebook.They said that, thanks to the company's success, it had become a "target for attack". During the live stream, some users claimed that the originators of the service themselves made the hack, in part because the company representatives refused to comment on whether they would restore the user's wallets or not.
In a letter sent to NiceHash users, an answer was given to this question - wallets will be restored. The letter, signed by the marketing director of the company, Andrei Skraba, shows that a group of international investors helped the company to reserve enough funds to restore balance on user wallets.
The letter says:
We are pleased to announce that we managed to reserve the funds necessary to restore account balances to international investors. Thus, the balance on the purses will be restored by January 31, 2018. We need this interim period to ensure the correct processing of all legal documents, so please be patient while we are solving the problem."
Representatives of NiceHash did not specify whether the balance of users will be returned in fiat or in bitcoin, although some Reddit users claim that their BTC balance is already displayed, but so far they are not available for transactions.
Strengthening Security
The return of the company to the market was also announced via Twitter. Also, the official channel contained several tips for users of the service aimed at enhancing security. In its Twitter, NiceHash recommended that users change their passwords, set up a new two-factor authentication method, and avoid old deposit addresses.
While it remains unclear whether the attackers succeeded in obtaining user data along with their bitcoins, users were advised to change all their online passwords to ensure security.
As the service returned to work, NiceHash regularly notifies users through social networks, and has already demonstrated that the company has successfully completed its first payment after the cyber attack.At the same time, company representatives noted that "due to additional security measures," changes were made in the system of payment and withdrawal of funds.
It is noteworthy that in view of the high commission charges in the bitcoin network, NiceHash is working on the processing of payments for altcoyins as part of the changes.
During printing, the recommended cost of the bitcoin transaction is 960 satosh per byte, which corresponds to 216,960 Satoshi if we consider the average transaction size of 226 bytes. Given that bitcoin currently trades at $ 12'800, it means that the proposed transaction commission is about $ 26.
At the end of the letter, the representatives of NiceHash note:
"We really regret any inconvenience that hackers could cause. We hope that you will want to continue investing your money and your faith in the world's largest crypto currency mining market."