Exchange Bitstamp fell victim to a $ 5 million hacker attack

The leading cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp has suspended its work due to a major cyber attack. This is stated on the official website of the exchange in the address of the Bitstamp management to its customers:

“We have temporarily suspended Bitstamp. Bitstamp customers can be confident that their applications for the Bitcoin exchange, left before the suspension of the stock exchange’s activities on January 5 (9 am GMT), will be fully implemented. ”

“On January 4, 2015, some Bitstamp operating wallets were hacked, resulting in a loss of 19,000 BTC. Upon learning of this incident, we immediately notified all customers that they should not replenish their wallets until the exchange management liquidates the consequences of the attack. ”

“We appreciate the patience of our customers. Currently, work is already underway to back up the site to a new repository and to establish a safe operation of the service. In the coming days, customer service will resume. Until then, you can follow the updates on our website, on Twitter and through the support service at support@bitstamp.net ",

- says the official website of the exchange.
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CEO Bitstamp claim that competent law enforcement agencies are already involved in the investigation of the incident. And as an additional security measure, it was decided to suspend the operation of the service completely until the circumstances of the cyber attack were clarified.

The management of the exchange also assures that the stolen Bitcoins (19 thousand BTC, which corresponds to $ 5.1 million) is only a small share of all the Bitcoin-reserves of the exchange and that the losses of Bitstamp clients will be fully compensated.

However, the initial silence of the exchange (the first official reports of problems on the exchange came only the day after the attack) sown some panic among its customers and inspired an involuntary association with last year's “minor problems on Mt.Gox”, which eventually led to the collapse of the exchange and the disappearance half a billion dollars (700 thousand bitcoins) from the accounts of Mt.Gox users. In addition, in the course of further proceedings, quite recently, the investigation found that hackers obtained only 1% of the total amount of BTC, and employees of the exchange itself were implicated in the loss of the remaining 99% of BTC (or 643,000 Bitcoins).

The exchanges (including Bitstamp), which competed with Mt.Gox, accused its management of incompetence and assured the Internet community that they would not have a similar scenario.

Another unpleasant consequence of the problems at Bitstamp was the “chain reaction in the Bitcoin ecosystem”, due to the fact that many large Bitcoin companies used this exchange to provide liquidity and exchange operations. All this led to a fall in prices .