BitcoinTalk The Hole Seekers Hack
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The popular BitcoinTalk forum, one of the largest early communities to discuss bitcoin, was hacked in October 2013, with visitors being greeted by a dramatic animation featuring magicians, rockets, and a podcast with a bitcoin song. While there was significant speculation about the extent of the damage, it appears that there was limited impact. While administrator Theymos had expressed concerns user data may have been compromised, there is no evidence to support that. Analysis of the injected JavaScript was unable to find any malicious payload. The forums were restored and continued operating a few days later.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]
About BitcoinTalk
BitcoinTalk is "one of the largest and, most importantly, international forums where you can find absolutely all the information about Bitcoins." "Bitcointalk.org is the largest and probably the most famous forum related to the Bitcoin world." "Here you can safely communicate with miners from different parts of the world, read about the most favorable offers from cranes or cloud mining sites, learn the principles of doubling and choose the most reliable services, communicate in "non-stop"mode."
"BitcoinTalk is a message board where people interested in the technical details and the development of Bitcoin software can talk to each other. The forum also has places for people who are interested in bitcoin mining, in trading with bitcoin, and in the economics of Bitcoin."
"Before the creation of the current BitcoinTalk Forum, Satoshi used a SourceForge forum, which is lost. When Sirius provided hosting, the forum was moved to bitcoin.org/smf. Satoshi made several custom modifications to the forum software and theme."
"In July, 2011 the forum was moved to bitcointalk.org in order to make it explicitly unofficial. The "forum" link on the bitcoin.org homepage was made to simply return the Google search results for the search terms "bitcoin forums". This was followed by Bitcoin Community members, very much in bitcoin's spirit of decentralisation, creating a number of alternative forums offering different moderatorial policies and using different software platforms. None of these alternative forums have yet reached the size of Bitcoin Talk." "On July 22, 2012, Bitcoin Talk reached its one millionth post."
The Reality
Clearly, there was a vulnerability in the forums below the surface.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| October 2nd, 2013 6:31:59 PM MDT | Reddit Thread Started | A Reddit thread is started to discuss about the hack[1]. |
| October 2nd, 2013 8:13:12 PM MDT | Theymos Reddit Response | Theymos responds to indicate that the issue is worse than he thought and the attacker may have been able to launch arbitrary PHP payloads[7]. Therefore, users should all exercise caution and assume that password hashes may have been at risk[7]. |
| October 6th, 2013 9:54:00 PM MDT | Forums Back Up | A Tweet announces that the BitcoinTalk forums have come back online. Service has been restored[8]. |
| October 14th, 2013 9:03:53 PM MDT | Video Of Attack | One video is posted on YouTube[6]. |
| October 17th, 2013 12:22:13 PM MDT | Video Posted Of Hack | A video recording of the hack output is posted to YouTube[4]. |
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
No funds were lost.
How much was lost and how was it calculated? If there are conflicting reports, which are accurate and where does the discrepancy lie?
Immediate Reactions
"Apparently Hacked by "The Hole Seekers"
A flash animation plays when you visit.. Wonder if any payload was malicious payload was delivered, or if user data was compromised? Site appears to be down now."
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
There do not appear to have been any funds recovered in this case.
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
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Bitcointalk hacked - Bitcoin Subreddit (Accessed May 15, 2024)
- ↑ BitcoinTalk forum hacked by 'The Hole Seekers' - CoinDesk (May 15, 2024)
- ↑ 9f98e7eb3289c21fbcbc05c26a865a34.png (May 15, 2024)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Bitcointalk.org Hacked Message October 2013 - YouTube (May 15, 2024)
- ↑ BitcoinTalk has been hacked - CryptoLife (May 15, 2024)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 BitcoinTalk Forums Hacked by the Hole Seekers - buttcoin.org mirror video screen capture - YouTube (Accessed May 15, 2024)
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 theymos - "It's unfortunately worse than I thought. There's a good chance that the attacker(s) could have executed arbitrary PHP code and therefore could have accessed the database, but I'm not sure yet how difficult this would be. I'm sending out a mass mailing to all Forum users about this." - Reddit (Accessed May 15, 2024)
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 bitcointalk - "Service on the BitcoinTalk forum has been restored" - Twitter (May 15, 2024)