The Biggest Heist in History
Coincheck breached by Hackers
Popular Japanese exchange Coincheck has seen over 260,000 customers lose their N.E.M cryptocurrency coins as a result of a security breach of their wallet. Over 523 million N.E.M coins have been reported stolen in the breach, the heist was worth at the time of it's reporting a massive $534 million! Fears about this type of stuff is always peddled as a large argument against cryptocurrencies, and it's shocking to the community when things like this happen as we put our trust in the exchanges that we use.
Unfortunately for Coincheck the breach happened as a result of storing the millions of the valuable cryptocurrency in a single signature hot wallet, making the funds easily accessible to a knowledgeable hacker. The funds were all kept in a central wallet, maximizing the risk of holding and hacking due to not distributing them across multiple encrypted addresses. However N.E.M representatives have apologized for the lack of security and have stated that they will trace the coins in order to secure and return the funds.
They intend to do so by developing and releasing an automated tagging system, this will follow the passage of "tainted" coins and will alert exchanges if they are changed into other cryptocurrencies or fiat. N.E.M Vice President Jeff McDonald has announced the plans to be ready within 48 hours, and will be used to accurately target the activity of the stolen coins, and potentially intercept them in order to reappropriate them to previous owners. This plan was suggested as an alternative to a proposed hard fork in the N.E.M blockchain, a proposition declined as the issue of security lay within the wallet used not the currencies underlying technological flaws.
What Now for N.E.M?
This is the first cryptocurrency that has ever been targeted to such a significant extent, and the first to announce that it will be able to secure the movement of all funds stolen to prevent them from being transferred into untraceable currency. The team at N.E.M and the open source developers efforts in this situation will be very much appreciated by the community and holders/ investors of the cryptocurrency to recover the stolen funds. Hopefully if there's one good thing to come of this is the evident reliability of blockchain tech in recovering stolen funds, and some much needed publicity for N.E.M and it's hard working team, which is arguably the most under talked about top 10 cryptocurrencies of the year.
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