Hacking

A new Ethereum ICO was hacked, the victim is Etherparty

The Etherparty website is the last victim in order of time of a cyber attack involving an Ethereum ICO (Initial Coin Offering).

Another hack involving an Ethereum ICO (Initial Coin Offering) made the headlines, the victim is the Etherparty website that sells tokens for a blockchain-based smart contract tool. The attackers replaced the legitimate address for sending funds to buy tokens with a fraudulent one they controlled.

Etherparty is a platform for the creation of smart contract that leverages on the blockchain.

Etherparty launched its Fuel token sale on October 1 at 9 A.M. PDT, but just 45 minutes, attackers hacked into the ICO website and replaced the wallet address, hijacking cryptocurrencies sent by investors.

According to Etherparty, its staff detected the hack after 15 minutes and in response immediately took the ICO website down for nearly one and half hour preventing more investors from sending funds to the attackers’ wallet.

The website, hosted on a new server, went online at 11:35 A.M. PDT.

The website displays the following message to investors:

Always check the URL and verify the contract address before sending ETH to any ICO.”

At the time it is unclear the exact amount of cryptocurrencies stolen by hackers, the company ensured that it will compensate “any affected contributors, with its proprietary FUEL token, prior to the temporary website shutdown at 10 A.M. PDT.”

The blockchain company has also “promised to compensate any affected contributors, with its proprietary FUEL token, prior to the temporary website shutdown at 10 A.M. PDT.” 

“One hour after the ICO officially went live, the company identified a security issue, caused by a fraudulent contribution address, and temporarily shut down the website to protect all participants.” reads the press release published by the company on Medium.

Etherparty’s site was later restored after the issue was resolved at 11:35 A.M. PDT, after going offline for 90 minutes. The blockchain company has promised to compensate any affected contributors, with its proprietary FUEL token, prior to the temporary website shutdown at 10 A.M. PDT.

The Etherparty ICO is still ongoing and it will be open until October 29, 2017. According to the company, the ICO had a great start “selling over 10,000,000 FUEL tokens in the first hour.” The company sold more than 400,000,000 FUEL tokens before the official launch in the pre-sale.

“Our team has been consistently and successfully thwarting potential security issues to avoid further escalation,” Etherparty Founder Lisa Cheng said.”However, we do acknowledge and apologise for the temporary disruption to our otherwise successful launch day. Etherparty is eager and committed to compensating all affected contributors for the inconvenience.”

This is the last hack in order of time, below the list of previous attacks in an ICO:

In response to the string of incidents the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued an official warning about the risks of ICOs, meanwhile, China has already announced a ban on all ICO across the country.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Etherparty ICO, hacking)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.

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