How New Ethereum Hack Enabled Users To Make More Than $1,000 Per Minute
Privacy-centric cryptocurrency Verge (XVG) has reportedly fallen victim to yet another hack and this time it takes advantage of the loopholes in its code, allowing miners to mint XVG coins worth $1,000 every minute.
According to a recent report, the new hack exploits a flaw in the software that is similar to that of a hack that took place in April this year. The hack which was called "Time Malleability" involved the manipulation of the time stamp during the mining process. The hackers manipulated the time stamp to trick the XVG protocol into thinking that the last block was mined an hour earlier. This means that a false block would be included in the main chain.
Verge developers rushed to fix the flaw but users on BitcoinTalk.org believe that the fix did very little to remedy the situation and so hackers are still exploiting the bug. Hackers are now forking the XVG chain using two algos named scrypt and lyra2re. The two algos can be rented out at nicehash for a small fee.
Hackers have managed to take advantage of the new hack by sending one block scrypt followed by one block lyra2re and with manipulated timestamps. This makes it possible to lower the diff, making it possible for several blocks to be mined per minute. One Reddit user revealed his discovery about the hack.
“Earliest block I found as a starting point is 2,155,913. https://prohashing.com/explorer/Verge/ still shows the current growth of the blockchain at around 25 blocks per minute resulting in 18250XVG or 950$ per minute for the attacker.”
The Reddit user later updated his report revealing that the mining activity continued and believes that more than 35 million XVG was created in just a few hours. The hack is reportedly still active and this means that the whole situation has led to some concerns especially from members of the Verge community.
The main concern is whether the algorithm for Verge is really secure. The Verge community is also concerned about how the hack will affect the value of the cryptocurrency and so far it has turned bearish by a significant margin ever since the announcement. It is currently not clear whether Verge developers are working on a permanent fix to remedy the situation or whether the hack will lead to a pump and dump situation. Whichever the case, the hackers will have easily made away with a significant amount of cash.