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DNS Hijack Leads To Bitcoin Heist
First time accepted submitter FearTheFez writes "Social Engineering and poor DNS Security lead to a Bitcoin heist worth about $12000. Bitcoin broker Bitinstant was robbed after thieves managed to take over ownership of their domains. While Bitinstant claims that no customers lost any money, without 2 factor authentication all it took was a place of birth and a mothers maiden name to gain access. This looks like poor security from everyone involved."
If a standard currency exchange was robbed for $12,000 we would not even read the story. This is a trivial crime and of little interest. It serves more as a warning rather than as a bank robbery story. I hope that those that are concerned learn from this but if this is the crime of the century in the Bitcoin world then they are doing really well.
No, the Bitcoin crime of the century was last year when the same server was hacked twice, to a tune of several hundred thousand dollars, as mentioned in TFA. Bitcoin hacks are becoming more and more common, so it's only a matter of time before that amount is surpassed.
Personally I don't see the point of bitcoins. I don't pay for everything in cash in the real world because it lacks the protections that other payment methods have. I don't see a reason to use a digital equivalent of cash in the online world. Bitcoins' anonymity might be it's biggest strength, but it's also it's biggest weakness.