Another day another Ethereum related breach – This time its Veritaseum platform, whose Initial Coin Offering (ICO) suffered a data breach in which around US$8.4 million worth of Ethereum have been stolen on Sunday.
In an analysis report published by Veritaseum’s founder Reggie Middleton, the hackers conducted a “very sophisticated” hack attack on the platform and stole US$8.4M worth of VERI tokens and transferred all the amount to two different addresses [1 & 2]. Furthermore, the hackers sold the stolen VERI tokens for Ethereum and transferred all the amount to two different addresses.
This incident, although uncomfortable for us, shows that the numbers listed are real and the market for VERI is real https://t.co/df79EMulC1
— Veritaseum (@Veritaseuminc) July 24, 2017
Here’s the discussion forum talking about Veritaseum hack and below is the analysis posted by Middleton:
“We were hacked, possibly by a group. The hack seemed to be very sophisticated, but there is at least one corporate partner that may have dropped the ball and be liable. We’ll let the lawyers sort that out if it goes that far.
Although I hate to see assets stolen, and I hate thieves, the incident proved both the resilient demand for our tokens and the utility of the decentralized exchange EtherDelta. The hacker(s) made away with $8.4M worth of tokens and dumped all of them within a few hours into a heavy cacophony of demand. This is without the public knowing anything about our last traction.
I would like to make it known that we had the option to fork VERI, but chose not to. At the end of the day, the amount stolen was minuscule (less than 00.07%) although the dollar amount was quite material.
Another point that I would like to make clear is that Veritaseum tokens are software that represents our knowledge, advisory and consulting skills, products and capabilities. Without the Veritaseum team, the tokens are literally worthless! If someone were to someone confiscate 100% of the available tokens, all we need to do is refuse to stand behind them and recreate the token under a new contract. Again, we aren’t selling currencies; we aren’t selling securities. We are selling capabilities, and the ability for those capabilities to connect parties P2P for the autonomous transfer of value. You can get away with a large securities heist or a large currency heist. The Veritaseum team is what powers the value behind the Veritas token. A large theft of those tokens after a fork is as valuable as stealing 90M empty plastic cups.”
The hack is still being investigated, and so far there is limited information out there. However, this is the third time in just one week that hackers have stolen a massive amount of Ethereum. On 17th July, CoinDash (ISO), an Israeli cryptocurrency social trading start-up announced that hackers stole $7 Million Ethereum stolen from their crowdfunding page.
On 20th July, hackers stole $32 Million in Ethereum from 3 multisig wallets belonging to Parity Technologies, a smart contract coding firm. The hackers could do so by exploiting a vulnerability in company’s software’s versions 1.5 and above.
