Hacking of the Ethereum Protocol: It’s Serious

Very often what we consider to be safe and secure is not. We used to believe that cryptocurrency is an ideal technology, guaranteed protection against theft, and it can only be threatened by an attack "51%". However, reality once again presented an unpleasant surprise.

Indeed, the event has been very alarming and the consequences of it are going to mess up the nerves of cryptocurrency holders.

In New York, a court arrested two brothers accused of exploiting Ethereum’s vulnerability and stealing $25M. The prosecutor specifically pointed out that the theft took only 12 sec. In fact, it’s time to do a couple of clicks and type a few words on the keyboard.

Objectivity, for the sake of note, that the preparation for the hacking was clearly not one week, or even a month.

The personalities of the two hacking-brothers are interesting. They were both educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, specializing in mathematics and IT. Incidentally, it was this fact that led the investigation to incriminate them by pointing out that the suspects had used specialized knowledge to commit the crime.

In fact, it is not so important what knowledge the brothers had and whether they are IT geniuses. It is important that the possibility of cracking the Ethereum protocol has been proven. This means that until the hacker brothers will be analyzed, no cryptocurrency can be considered absolutely safe. So far, thefts have occurred either through the crypto owners' fault or as a result of hacking third-party software. 

If a possibility of hacking is fundamentally shown, thousands of IT geniuses will sit for the search for new vulnerabilities, and it is possible that their research will be successful. 

I have a negative attitude towards such actions, but I have to admit the skill of the brothers. It is a pity that they used it for criminal purposes.

#attack51 #Ethereum #cryptocurrency #ITgeniuses