A combination of an attractive target, social engineering, brute-force, and enough resources is all it takes to break even some of the most secure systems. An, as yet unknown attacker compromised a popular distributed mining website nicehash.com on 12/6/2017 stealing over 4,000 BTC and compromising the firm's entire network.
Very little information has been released regarding the attack.
What we have been told;
NiceHash has reported the theft to local and international authorities.
Several wallets were compromised through NiceHash's complex payment system.
A single transaction was made to an external wallet address.
NiceHash has suspended operations while an investigation takes place and security is strengthened.
If you are a seller of NiceHash services, your only loss is whatever your pending payout was on 12/6.
If you are a buyer of hashing power, your funds have been lost, but NiceHash claims to be attempting to recover them.
As a client who was using the NiceHash miner, I am sad to be losing the small amount of income I was earning and I look forward to a restoration of service.
If you had NiceHash miner installed on your computer, I recommend uninstalling it until reports say NiceHash is back online. I also recommend changing any of your online passwords associated with your bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies and storing most of your assets in a "cold" wallet. If you are not familiar enough with bitcoin to understand how to securely store your coin, visit bitcoin.org and educate yourself.
