AllCrypt Bitcoin Scrypt (BTCS) Theft
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The AllCrypt platform offered a wide range of currencies including Bitcoin Scrypt (BTCS). On March 21st, 2014, a hacker managed to steal over 55,000 BTCS. Unfortunately for the thief, they withdrew them to the MintPal platform, and MintPal cooperated to help return them to the AllCrypt platform. Only 3 users were affected on the AllCrypt platform, and all received their funds back.
This is a global/international case not involving a specific country.[1][2][3][4][5]
About AllCrypt
The AllCrypt platform offered a wide range of currencies including Bitcoin Scrypt.
"[T]he BTCS decentralized blockchain network continues to run uninterrupted from its genesis block created on September 8, 2013, and is one of the most mature blockchain networks still mining blocks."
"I’m happy to report that we have recovered 55,685.92170221 BTCS that were stolen on Friday the 21st. And can now relate the rest of the story.
Shortly after we posted the first blog entry including the address the BTCS was withdrawn to, we were contacted by Jay of MintPal via twitter (tweet since deleted, I think to keep the info quiet) and submitted a ticket on our support system. He told us that he saw the blog post and out of curiosity, he checked their system. The address the coins were sent to was a MintPal address. The users account was locked down pending investigation.
Emails flew back and forth. Apparently the thief claimed that he did a normal withdrawal from his AllCrypt.com account and didn’t know why we were picking on him. MintPal wanted to be thorough and make sure my story was true and that he wasn’t accidentally screwing up his own user’s account.
AllCrypt provided logs, and we verified IP addresses and email addresses used by the thief. MintPal confirmed it was the same on their site. We signed messages using the sending BTCS addresses in question to verify we owned the address the coins came from. The thief said that he could prove that it was a valid transfer. How, I’ve no idea, because the coins were stolen from three different accounts. He was given a deadline which came and went.
In the meantime, AllCrypt.com relaunched. We were contacted on Sunday by a user who claimed to have found a vulnerability in our system (here’s the vulnerability he found: If you append garbage to the market?id= string on the market pages, some of that data appears in the backto= link that is used to send you back to the page you were on after logging in. HTML tags are stripped and all funny characters are escaped, so do it all you want – it just makes a broken link. Actually – don’t. You’re going to eventually type something that gets your IP banned).
Anyway, assuming it to be someone trying to be helpful and them not realizing we increased our security, I replied and told him that it’s a non issue.
He then said that we should reward him. What? No. I told him to piss off. He then threatened to sell the information to “other russians” and proceeded to try to extort a “reward”. Then to prove his point that he “found data” he quoted something he “just found” – information that no longer existed. Stuff he saw on Friday when he hacked the site. Stuff that, while we were down, we changed, renamed, moved, and tightened security on. In other words – on Sunday when we relaunched, the information did not exist anymore. So the only way he could have seen it was to have seen it Friday. The asshole came back and was now trying extortion.
The thief told the MintPal devs that the coins had come from a BTCS address here at AllCrypt. In fact, the address is attached to the account the thief made here. And that account had never received or sent a single coin. Apparently, the guy is an imbecile and is too stupid to realize that’s a simple check (Oh, yes, I am intentionally being inflammatory).
More emails between us and MintPal, and the devs over there became convinced he was the thief. They returned what was left that the thief had not already moved out of MintPal -55,685.92170221 BTCS.
We want to thank Jay and Jason at MintPal for their honesty and integrity in helping resolve this situation. They went above and beyond (including enduring my barrage of harassing emails while their servers were experiencing issues – a fact I was not aware of while I was pestering them) in helping bring this to a positive resolution. Unfortunately, due to laws in the country they operate (I honestly don’t know where they are based) they could not divulge information they have on the thief."
This is a global/international case not involving a specific country.
The background of the exchange platform, service, or individuals involved, as it would have been seen or understood at the time of the events.
Include:
- Known history of when and how the service was started.
- What problems does the company or service claim to solve?
- What marketing materials were used by the firm or business?
- Audits performed, and excerpts that may have been included.
- Business registration documents shown (fake or legitimate).
- How were people recruited to participate?
- Public warnings and announcements prior to the event.
Don't Include:
- Any wording which directly states or implies that the business is/was illegitimate, or that a vulnerability existed.
- Anything that wasn't reasonably knowable at the time of the event.
There could be more than one section here. If the same platform is involved with multiple incidents, then it can be linked to a main article page.
The Reality
This sections is included if a case involved deception or information that was unknown at the time. Examples include:
- When the service was actually started (if different than the "official story").
- Who actually ran a service and their own personal history.
- How the service was structured behind the scenes. (For example, there was no "trading bot".)
- Details of what audits reported and how vulnerabilities were missed during auditing.
What Happened
The specific events of the loss and how it came about. What actually happened to cause the loss and some of the events leading up to it.
| Date | Event | Description |
|---|---|---|
| March 21st, 2014 | Theft Event | Theft happens. |
Technical Details
This section includes specific detailed technical analysis of any security breaches which happened. What specific software vulnerabilities contributed to the problem and how were they exploited?
Total Amount Lost
55,685.92170221 BTCS that were stolen on Friday the 21st
The total amount lost has been estimated at $2,000 USD.
Immediate Reactions
How did the various parties involved (firm, platform, management, and/or affected individual(s)) deal with the events? Were services shut down? Were announcements made? Were groups formed?
Ultimate Outcome
What was the end result? Was any investigation done? Were any individuals prosecuted? Was there a lawsuit? Was any tracing done?
Total Amount Recovered
The total amount recovered has been estimated at $2,000 USD.
What funds were recovered? What funds were reimbursed for those affected users?
Ongoing Developments
What parts of this case are still remaining to be concluded?
Individual Prevention Policies
No specific policies for individual prevention have yet been identified in this case.
For the full list of how to protect your funds as an individual, check our Prevention Policies for Individuals guide.
Platform Prevention Policies
Policies for platforms to take to prevent this situation have not yet been selected in this case.
For the full list of how to protect your funds as a financial service, check our Prevention Policies for Platforms guide.
Regulatory Prevention Policies
No specific regulatory policies have yet been identified in this case.
For the full list of regulatory policies that can prevent loss, check our Prevention Policies for Regulators guide.
References
- ↑ The Hack – The Resolution « AllCrypt Blog (Mar 19, 2024)
- ↑ Bitcoin sCrypt (BTCS) – Official Bitcoin sCrypt Altcoin (BTCS) Website (Mar 19, 2024)
- ↑ https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/bitcoin-scrypt (Mar 19, 2024)
- ↑ https://theotherbitcoin.com/ (Mar 19, 2024)
- ↑ http://btcs.altcoinwarz.com:3005/ (Mar 19, 2024)