Bitcoin Gold (BTG) dev team warns its users about a security breach

The development team of the Bitcoin Gold (BTG) cryptocurrency is warning all users users about a security breach involving its Windows version of wallet app

The development team of the Bitcoin Gold (BTG) cryptocurrency is warning all users users about a security breach involving the official Windows wallet application offered for download via its official website. Bitcoin Gold is the fork of the official Bitcoin cryptocurrency that was created on October 25.

The Bitcoin Gold website does not include links to the installers for the official wallet apps, but links to files hosted in a GitHub repository used by the development team

The development team of the Bitcoin Gold (BTG) explained that attackers gained access to this GitHub account and replaced the legitimate Windows installer with a “suspicious” file that were created to steal funds from the victims and other information.

Developers confirmed the Linux version of the official wallet app was not changed during the incident.

The development team discovered the security breach over the weekend when the experts noticed that the SHA-256 checksum for the Windows installer did not match the original SHA-256 checksum for the file present on the GitHub repository.

“Please be aware that for approximately 4.5 days, a link on our Download page and the file downloads on our Github release page have been serving two suspicious files of unknown origin.” reads the security advisory.

Below are the correct SHA-256 checksums for BTG’s Windows wallet app.

Windows file SHA-256:
53e01dd7366e87fb920645b29541f8487f6f9eec233cbb43032c60c0398fc9fa
bitcoingold-0.15.0-win64-setup.exe

Further investigation allowed the development team to discover that the “malicious” file was available in the GitHub repository between November 21, 2017, 09:39 UTC, and November 25, 2017, 22:30 UTC.

The bad news for end-users is that the malware was not detected by antivirus software.

“Until we know otherwise, all users should presume these files were created with malicious intent – to steal cryptocurrencies and/or user information. The file does not trigger antivirus / anti-malware software, but do not presume the file is safe.” continues the advisory.

“Any user who verified the SHA-256 checksum of the download against the checksum listed on our Download pages is already aware the file is not authentic and should not have used the file, but nobody should assume that all users take this important step.”

Affected users urge to transfer funds to new wallet addresses and reinstall affected computers.

“If the file was used, the computer on which it was used should be addressed with extreme caution; the file should be deleted, the machine should be thoroughly checked for malware and viruses (or wiped clean), and any cryptocurrencies with wallets accessible on that machine should be moved to new wallet addresses immediately,” suggested the Bitcoin Gold development team that meantime has restored the original files and has secured its GitHub account.

BTG is currently the fifth most popular cryptocurrency on the market, ranked behind Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Ripple (XRP).

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Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – cryptocurrency, 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”.