Hackers already stole over $1B in Bitcoin in 2018

Reports coming from Carbon Black tell that hackers have stolen over 1 billion U.S. dollars in digital currency Bitcoin just this year - from 1 January to this day. This has become possible thanks to a local revolution in the hackers’ community.

There were times when hackers had to be experienced coders searching for security breaches all by themselves - later the group has been joined by social engineering experts who under different circumstances would have become good in corporate investment attraction departments. And now hacking becomes even more mainstream due to the fact that criminal kits with a user-friendly interface are being sold on the Dark Web for about $200. Carbon Black representatives tell that for some of such programs there was even a tech support in case something goes awry.

The source of such programs and attacks could indeed be people who did not find a good job, confirms Carbon Black strategist Rick McElroy:

"You have nations that are teaching coding, but there's no jobs. It could just be two people in Romania needing to pay rent."

This breakthrough in criminal tools availability, by the way, is the reason attributed to the recent wave of 51% attacks - it has become possible just to buy the needed computing power without bothering to work on establishing it.

Image: Michael Hoffer