Bitcoins worth $87,000 plundered in brazen server breach
More than $87,000 worth of the virtual currency known as Bitcoin was stolen after online bandits penetrated servers belonging to Bitcoinica, prompting its operators to temporarily shutter the trading platform to contain the damage.
Friday's theft came after hackers accessed Bitcoinica's production servers and depleted its online wallet of 18,547 BTC, as individual Bitcoin units are called, company officials said in a blog post published on Friday. It said the heist affected only a small fraction of Bitcoinica's overall bitcoin deposits and that all withdrawal requests will be honored once the platform reopens.
It was at least the second time in 10 weeks Bitcoinica has been stung by a computer intrusion that has cost it dearly. In early March, a security lapse at cloud services provider Linode allowed hackers to make off with about $210,000 worth of bitcoin after they gained unauthorized access to bitcoin wallets stored by Bitcoinica and seven other customers. Last June, an anonymous person claimed to have lost $500,000 worth of bitcoin to online thieves, but the claims were never independently verified.
