Pony up: Botnet succesfully targets Bitcoin Another $US200,000-plus worth of Bitcoins has been lifted, according to Trustwave, which has identified a new Pony botnet targeting crypto-currencies. News of the heist comes hard on the heels of Mt Gox withdrawing from the Bitcoin foundation and killing off its social media accounts. Pony isn't a horse of a completely …
Unencrypted wallet does seem a bit harsh, but wouldn't it take more than that? It seems to me that the attacker would have to install a virus or keylogger, and that requires root privileges. I can guess how that happened, but nevertheless these were rather trusting souls.
It may just be that most users don't have much in their bitcoin wallets. After all, when you go to bed at night, do you leave your wallet in your trouser pocket, or lock it in a wall safe? If you only have a fiver in it, the wall safe option might seem like overkill, even if you happen to have one right next to your bed.
Maybe stage coaches, sheriffs and lynchings?
This bitcoin stuff is looking more like the wild west and gold mining every day.
As it was with the gold rushes of yesteryear, a few miners made a ton and most lost everything they had. The only people that always did well were the barmen, hookers and shovel salesmen.
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I didn't realise there were quite that many thingycoin things going now. What exactly would motivate someone to expend scarce computing resources and electricity, in order to mine junkcoin? 'Tis very strange. Also odd to assign monetary value to them, as I bet you can never actually find a buyer.
On the other hand maybe some, or all, of them will work. It's a free market out there - so if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Therefore I propose that El Reg get off their arses, and get busy coming up with all their users really want. No, not spaceplanes or better forum software. We want none of such flim-flammery. Give us VultureCoin!
There are, however, sites (such as cryptsy) which operate as crytocoin exchanges. Even if you can't get $currency for your $cryptocoins, you can exchange them for bitcoins, which although not simple to do, can be exchanged for $currency (difficulty depends on $currency).
Trustwave notes that most users, it seems, don't encrypt their wallets, which seems somewhat rash to The Register. ®
No more rash than the entire idea of non-insured digital currency...
@AC. Yes, throwing money into the street probably would have been just as smart with less hand wringing in the end.
Mine's the one with the old fashioned wallet in the pocket, full of insured debit/credit cards and real cash money...
Virtual cash is .. virtual.
About time people started to get the message.
This is all on par with get-rich-quick schemes, and we all know that the only ones who win are the ones who started it.
In any case, this slew of articles concerning MtGox and sleazy dealings in StuffyCoins is the final nail on the coffin.
As far as I'm concerned, all these CoinThingys are just criminal enterprises, period.
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