It seems like Ethereum will let the wallet owner take advantage of the loopholes in Ethereum security. Recently, Ethereum wallet owner discovered that he was able to steal Ether from the users. Currently, he has stolen $ 19 million in nature. This is with the help of misconfigured Ethereum apps.
The modus operandi involves a scanning of the Ethereum network for vulnerable clients. Over the years, quite a few such clients have been found. As a result, Ether has been stolen from such clients. Thereafter, the data is given to the 3rdparty in order to gain access to information like private keys as well as personal data. This information can also be used in order to transfer the cryptocurrency assets. Under normal circumstances, this vulnerability is off by default. Whenever it is turned on, and alert is sent to the users as well.
Vulnerability Opened by mistake:
Even then, some of the users while changing the settings of the wallet open it by mistake. They leave it open for a long enough period of time. As a result, by scanning the network the hackers are able to easily find the vulnerabilities.
At the start, it was just a small hack that Ether is stolen. However over since then, smaller amounts of Ether have been stolen on a consistent basis. As a result, the total amount of Ether which h been stolen is now significant.
According to Netlab team, there are many of hackers which are currently scanning the network. These are trying to detect the vulnerabilities. Earlier, it was just a single IP. However, over the last few months, the scanning has increased considerably. This clearly indicates that more and more people are looking to exploit this vulnerability.
Experts believe that in the coming few months, there might be more such vulnerabilities in other cryptocurrencies. If indeed, there are such vulnerabilities found, the losses in cryptocurrencies can be in millions. This is the problem which most of the cryptocurrency owners are facing. Since they are not familiar with the technical details of the Ethereum wallets or the cryptocurrency wallets, it is difficult for them to understand how to prevent this hack.
In the last few months, 20 million Ether have been stolen. This clearly indicates that the magnitude of the scam is much bigger than thought earlier. It remains to be seen whether the wallet companies are able to eliminate this vulnerability entirely.
