Scammers Discovered Vulnerability In the Augur Betting System

The Augur system has a vulnerability in the betting system, which was revealed recently but cannot be fixed until the launch of Augur v.2. Reddit users claim that fraudsters are exploiting it, which was also confirmed by Augur CEO Joey KRUG in a series of tweets.

Reddit user nicknamed Singlefin 12222 stated in his posts that “Augur is being gamed” with the attackers betting on impossible outcomes and stake on the market being invalid, after which the Augur system evenly distributes all the money collected among betters. Thus, fraudsters also make a profit.

This is kinda fake news for a few reasons. #ethereum @AugurProject

1) Almost all of these purposefully confusing markets are being created by one person, not a bunch of people. The activity on those markets is also by one person / address. https://t.co/9jLIeGqun9

— Joey Krug (@joeykrug) 20 марта 2019 г.

Joey KRUG explained that his team knows about this problem, and has found a way to prevent this vulnerability. However, the problem has not been solved still, since tas the algorithm that determines the amount lost when invalid bets are created on purpose is not yet properly configured. As the project leader noted, the release of Augur v.2 is not planned in the near future:

“These aren’t things to be rushed. I think it’s probably easier to address UI side, by warning people about this stuff more.”

The Augur team has created a “temporary fix” for the problem by incorporating user interface messages that will alert users if they interact with a potentially fraudulent market.

Image courtesy of Hacked.com