Litebit Hacked!
The Dutch supplier/crypto exchange Litebit.eu has informed their customers that they were the victim of a successful hack on September 12th. This is not the first time that the Exchange has been the victim of unlawful entry to their servers.
About Litebit
Litebit is one of biggest sellers and buyers of cryptocurrency in the Netherlands. They have a large selection of cryptocurrency available and support multiple types of payment like Ideal. The site also has its own hosted wallets so that you can buy your favorite crypt coin and store it on the site before moving it to an exchange or your own wallet. It is this type of consumer friendly service that has made the site very popular in Europe.
What happened
The site became victim of a cyberattack. The attacker was able to gain access to one of the Litebit servers and had access to some vital data like email addresses, hashed passwords, IBANs, phone numbers, home addresses and portfolio data.
"Luckily" there was no breach on the wallet servers and and the verification data. The Dutch company has reported the intrusion to the Dutch police and the Dutch Data Protection Authority.
What can we learn from this?
I have no doubt that Litebit extensive security measures in place, especially after the former incident but they got hacked anyway. If the hackers had gained access to the wallet server, a lot of people would have lost their money.
A lot of people still store their cryptocurrency on Exchanges but you have to realize that keeping your funds on an Exchange is a risky move.
If you keep your crypto stored online, you run the risk of falling victim to Cyber attacks. It might not be you that is at fault but the Exchange that has a lacking security. However besides the point who is at fault, the outcome can be devastating. Namely, you the customer, losing your precious crypto.
Lessons Learned
A hardware or paper wallet is the best way to secure your funds
If you don't have a hardware wallet and your only option is to use an online wallet, at least make sure that you have 2-factor authentication enabled.
You can read more about 2-Factor in my post Important notice- Protect your online wealth
Never keep your coins on an Exchange even if it is convenient.
Exchanges (and also online wallets) have known to go "down" when you need them most. With so much money going round in the world of cryptocurrency you can bet that online Exchanges and Wallets are potential targets for Cyber criminals
Keep your digital wealth close and safe and don't count on others to protect you funds. Trust is good but a hardware wallet is better.
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Great posts. Follow, upvote and resteem. Checking out your other posts!!
Thank you for the support. Followed and looking into your posts as well
You are most welcome. Hope to get more of my own posts up soon. Mostly resteems as buy with market stuff. Headed to South Point in a bit to see if can get good videos and pics of cliff divers, then down the beach. Thanks for following!
Looking forward to your posts, keep Steemin'
Will do and thanks again!
I got the e-mail too. Kind of miffed, as I got a similar warning mail from them last month. I used a different password etc, but am not happy at all about all my data being in some hacker's hands. Not that I did much business there.. but still.
Hardware wallets only ! Every exchange will get hacked eventually
Mine should be arriving any day now!
I really like the fact that you can pay with ideal and also the hosted wallets. Seems like they have a security issue. I have been using Anycoindirect.eu as an alternative they also have a great service.
Yes, paying with iDeal is great.
But the more I think about it, the more concerned I get from this hack. They have a combination of names, phone numbers, IBAN bank accounts, email adresses, home adresses, and hashed passwords. With only part of this information I think it would be pretty easy to commit identity fraud and possibly gain access to other accounts from other services.
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That was my first experience with Litebit, not really assuring. I did my first try to convert steem dollars to real cash and got that email while trying. I wrote an article about what I learned and referred to you for explanation of the hack.
You should try https://anycoindirect.eu/nl/ I have good experiences with their services.
I'll keep it in mind, thx!
Interesting. Sophisticated hacking going on here. They are getting better and better so companies will have to hire some of them and pay them more.