NiceHash back, should we trust them again?

NiceHash, a cryptocurrency mining marketplace had their security breached and more than $70 million worth of bitcoin based on today's price was stolen and moved to this address on December 6, 2017. Everyone that used NiceHash services at the time claimed all their crypto funds are gone from the platform.

The nervous community on Reddit and Twitter have been speculating that there might of been a possible hack before anything was announced, as the website at a time was down for "maintenance".

Not long after that the announcement was made by the NiceHash team to let everyone know what is going on:

"Importantly, our payment system was compromised and the contents of the NiceHash Bitcoin wallet have been stolen. We are working to verify the precise number of BTC taken. Clearly, this is a matter of deep concern and we are working hard to rectify the matter in the coming days. In addition to undertaking our own investigation, the incident has been reported to the relevant authorities and law enforcement and we are co-operating with them as a matter of urgency."

The head of NiceHash marketing, Andrej P. Škraba also commented on it, he stated that it was “a highly professional attack with sophisticated social engineering.”

NiceHash claimed that all major exchanges were informed in case the hacker tries to sell all stolen bitcoins. Although, in my honest opinion it was a waste of time. As we know, there are private currencies like Monero where the hacker could easily flip all the money without anyone knowing about it.

Recently the NiceHash team has tweeted that they're back on their feet after the hack. Ready to mine once more. Although, I am very concerned about this. Who would trust them after such a big event? If you dig in a bit deeper you can find very interesting information about the CTO of NiceHash. Although, it doesn't give as an answer of who did it, we can only speculate.

Matjaz Skorjanc was arrested in 2010, for money laundering, and creating the "Mariposa botnet" which at one point infected 12.7 million computers - he is the son of the owner of NiceHash.

To top off today's strange events, he's scrubbing the internet for traces of his existence, his LinkIn profile that was active yesterday, is now deleted. A facebook profile active earlier today is also gone.

If I have to be completely honest, I would recommend anyone to stay away from NiceHash, there are many other mining services that don't have as many red flags as this one does. Better safe than sorry.