An Australian entrepreneur going only by the name TradeFortress responsible for running Bitcoin wallet service Inputs.io claims two hackers recently infiltrated the website and stole roughly 4,100 Bitcoins, or about $1.18 million based on current conversion rates.
The site claimed to be the most secure wallet ever created and boasts some 20 different security measures including SSL encryption, location-based authentication, bcrypted passwords and a cold storage system. These measures, however, were seemingly not enough as the site was broken in to on October 26 according to the young owner.
A message left on the website said the attackers compromised the hosting account through compromising old e-mail accounts without phone numbers attached to them. This made the accounts easy to reset, we’re told.
The person behind the site said they were able to recover some of the Bitcoins but not all of them. As such, customers are eligible for a partial refund that will take place on a sliding scale. Unfortunately, not much else can be done.
Created in 2008 and valued at around $0.20 in 2010, Bitcoins are now valued at nearly $330 each. In the event you bought in early and often, you’d probably be a millionaire multiple times over at this point. But as the value of Bitcoin continues to skyrocket, the virtual currency is becoming a more lucrative target by the day.
One of the biggest problems today is deciding where to store them and keep thieves away. Perhaps the best bet is to keep your Bitcoin address offline complete, say by writing it down on a piece of paper so nobody in the digital world can access it.
