Now hackers have learned to get control over your phone.
Hackers have discovered that one of the key elements of online security — mobile phone number — is also the most vulnerable.
Over the past six months was thus stolen thousands of dollars from the owners of bitcoin wallets, writes the New York Times.
Hackers gain control of any mobile phone number rather banal way — call operators and come up with a variety of emergency reasons why the room should be transferred to the other apparatus. It would seem that no Manager in their right mind would not approve such an operation, but “hackers are dozens, if not hundreds of calls to different offices, until we find on the other end of the idiot,” says Joby weeks, a bitcoin entrepreneur, which hackers stole a million dollars from the account, despite the fact that he had asked the mobile operator to strengthen security after this attack were his relatives.
Authentication on a mobile phone is one of the safest. It is used by Google, Facebook, Twitter, and cryptocurrency wallets. But seizing a phone number, hackers can reset passwords on all accounts via the button “Forgot password?”. They do not need even to crack.
“My iPad rebooted, my phone got restarted and my computer started up again, and then I’m really scared,” said Chris Burniske, cryptocurrency investor, who lost control of his phone number at the end of last year.
According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the number of such attacks over the past few years increased two times. So, in January 2013 there were 1038 incidents, and by January 2016, the number had increased to 2658. Mostly, the victims of theft number be people somehow associated with investments in cryptocurrencies. Hackers are tracking their social media posts. Official figures on attacks are underestimated, because bitcoin investors are afraid to provoke the rivals in business, but in an interview with the NYT many admitted that they were victims of hacking.
“Everybody I know in the cryptocurrency world, has ever taken the phone number,” says wicks. Everything happens very quickly: hackers break into accounts within a few minutes. According to the NYT interviewed victims, it suggests that they work in teams.
Mobile operators, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint and others, though they say they are working on strengthening security (add more challenging PIN codes for account and identification number), but seem powerless to attack: hacking is often happening right under their noses in real time, when the victims knew that they robbed and alert the operator.
This vulnerability is a challenge not so much with mobile operators how much of the cryptocurrency community. Bitcoin transactions have been consciously invented as irreversible in order to prevent users from outside interference, but, ironically, have brought just the opposite.
Coinbase already encourages its customers to untie the mobile phones from their accounts. But the user is prompted to go further and to defer transactions if you recently changed the password.
“Coinbase is similar to the Bank: stores millions of dollars, but you have no idea until the end how weak his defense, until you are robbed of thousands of dollars in a matter of minutes,” says Cody brown, VR-the developer whose account was hacked in may. “It’s great to have the ability to control their money and move them without any permission, said Adam Pocernice, managing partner at Cryptochain Capital, who also took a room. But we must remember that for this privilege you have to pay.”
In July there is information about hacking blockchain-service Parity. Hackers were able to steal cryptocurrency wallets live on $32 million.
© 2017 – 2019, paradox. All rights reserved.
