NiceHash, which describes itself as the largest marketplace for mining digital currencies, said late Wednesday that it was suspending its operations for at least 24 hours because of a security breach.
Nearly $64m in bitcoin has been stolen by hackers who broke into Slovenian-based bitcoin mining marketplace NiceHash.
The hack was “a highly professional attack with sophisticated social engineering” that resulted in approximately 4,700 bitcoin being stolen, worth about $63.92m at current prices, said NiceHash head of marketing Andrej P Škraba.
NiceHash said in a statement: “We understand that you will have a lot of questions, and we ask for patience and understanding while we investigate the causes and find the appropriate solutions for the future of the service.”
Founders of hacked crypto-mining site apologize over Facebook livestream
“I see various kinds of emojis down there,” Kobal said at the start of the livestream, as users made their complaints heard. Numerous viewers said Kobal and Coh looked guilty, and some voiced suspicion of an inside job. The Slovenia-based company, founded in 2014, has paid out over a billion dollars to miners over the last three years, according to its founders.
That success, Kobal said, was what drew the wrong kind of attention to NiceHash. “Unfortunately, we became a target and someone really wanted to bring us down,” he said in the six minute livestream.
