Bitcoin.org site is hacked. How did it happen?
Emma Terry The bitcoin.org website, the oldest page in the whole cryptocurrency industry, was reportedly hacked this morning (09/23). Crooks who took control of the epochal web page published the offer to take part in a cryptocurrency giveaway. As usual, that offer is a 100% fraud.
Bitcoin.org was hacked: why and for what reason?
Bitcoin.org is surely the oldest site that is related to cryptocurrencies and the blockchain technology at all. It was registered in August 2008 by Satoshi Nakomoto and Martti Malmi. Its role in the development of cryptocurrencies and blockchain is hard to underestimate. In fact, at the beginning of the cryptocurrencies era, it was the main (and a single) news source for every involved person. With the time flow, bitcoin.org became just an official site of Bitcoin as cryptocurrency, but the majority of news is now published on other pages.
The original view of the bitcoin.org site
People trust this site, since it is like a monument for the first crypto token in the world. All information on this website was always legit, so nobody can even estimate that something like this can happen. Moreover, no one can expect that such a site can ever be hacked. No one knows how exactly this happened, but the fact that it was possible says clearly that there is a security breach on their web page.
Explaining the bitcoin.org hack and scamming
The exact scam that was published on the bitcoin.org page is simple. This scheme was already used multiple times – banners that offer to send a certain sum in BTC/ETH on a crypto wallet and receive x2/x3/x5/x10 back. However, people will barely trust such an offer from an unknown person or site. The first well-known case was conducted through social networks. Fraudsters have hacked Twitter accounts of celebrities and posted this scam there. Another example is pretty fresh – crooks created the fake Apple Event stream on 09/14 on YouTube and promoted their “offer” in it. A lot of people thought that they were watching the legit Apple Event, and trusted the offer to send cryptocurrencies. Of course, no one sent them the doubled sum – their money was just stolen.
This exact case likely beat all previous frauds. Previous cases were pretty easy to uncover, if you are attentive enough. This one, however, does everything to force you to trust it. Even when the Twitter accounts were hacked, you may suspect something by the fact that the same message was posted by 3-5 celebrities simultaneously. In the case of bitcoin.org hacking, everything looks organic and normal. In such a case, you must remember that no one will be so generous without any tricks.
Aftermath
Since the early morning 09/23 and to 2 PM of the same day, the bitcoin.org website was unreachable. The NameCheap, the hosting where this site is based, said that they have temporarily disabled the bitcoin.org domain due to security reasons. I think in the nearest future it will be back – with enhanced security mechanisms and without fraudulent banners. But it is still unknown who stands behind this attack, and how much money those crooks stole.
A lot of analysts say that the massive implementation of cryptocurrencies is a pandora’s box. Accepting Bitcoins is literally allowing the fraudsters to act on any field they want – ransomware distribution, online scams or drug dealing. This thing requires strong control, so just allowing the payments, as El Salvador did, in BTC is a haste step.
