Yet another popular cryptocurrency service provider has been hacked. LiteBit.eu is a European cryptocurrency broker which recently warned its users about suspicious activities on its servers. Someone successfully accessed company data, but it appears that all wallet balances are accounted for at the time of writing. None of the ID verification documents have been leaked either.
LiteBit Hack is Pretty Worrisome
It is good to know cryptocurrency service providers can suffer hacks without losing millions of dollars in customer funds. Usually, these sorts of hacks end with people losing money and companies closing their doors. LiteBit.eu is the latest company to suffer a hack, although the recent incident appears to be more of a data breach than anything else. In fact, no customer funds were stolen in the breach, which took place on August 5, 2017.
In an email to all customers, the company explained that their funds were safe and that ID verification documents were inaccessible to the hacker. However, the message noted that the hacker(s) had successfully obtained some server data. This was a pretty vague statement, but it seemed to confirm that no financial details had been leaked during the incident. That still could mean that the hacker might have obtained customer records including names and addresses, among other things. Hashed passwords may also have been stolen in the process, although this has not been officially confirmed.
Luckily, it appears the LiteBit team was able to identify the source of the data breach. The company has confirmed that the leak has been plugged, although they have not gone into specific details for the time being. A lot of cryptocurrency service providers suffer from issues which give hackers unauthorized access now and then. Indeed, that is how most exchange hacks have occurred in recent years. Something needs to be done to beef up platform security, lest more people end up losing valuable funds.
Any LiteBit user who has enabled two-factor authentication on his or her account will be required to re-enable it and change their password. Users who do not have this feature should certainly update their account passwords. Now would be a great time to start using password generators to avoid reusing the same passphrases on multiple sites. Any other platform where people use the same login or password will need to get updated as well. It is unclear whether the hackers obtained any data, but it is always better to err on the side of caution with this sort of thing.
Many LiteBit users are not too happy with this news. Some people had been growing annoyed with the platform prior to this hack. LiteBit allows users to quickly buy cryptocurrencies using traditional payment methods, but recently it has seemed to go into maintenance mode quite often. We can only hope the company makes some improvements in both this as well as the security department.
Services such as LiteBit will grow more popular over time. Consumers are looking for more ways to purchase cryptocurrency over the counter. Brokers like LiteBit will play an integral role in this regard. However, LiteBit will need to avoid service outages and data breaches moving forward. That is a lot easier said than done, of course. It will be interesting to note whether another update regarding this platform is posted in the near future.
