Atomic Wallet app exploit, users left with nothing
Yet another hack/exploit, another day in crypto. This is sadly becoming more and more common, And one of the reasons for it is most likely the "easy" money available during a bull run is no longer available. Meaning the thieves have to put some elbow grease into what they are doing.
The exploit
On Jun 3 Atomic Wallet put out a tweet stating that "We have received reports of wallets being compromised. We are doing all we can to investigate and analyse the situation. As we have more information, we will share it accordingly". This means that most likely the exploit was carried out earlier that day or the day before.
Sadly this sort of thing appears to have happened recently to Atomic Wallet. And according to one user who got hit back then. Atomics' response to the situation back then where anything but satisfying.
I am not really sure why the user kept using them after the first time. But I say good for them for switching. And that, sadly, appears to be the only way the users seem to be able to hold one of these companies accountable. Mind you we still don't know what happened during this exploit, so it might be Atomic is in the clear. But with that type of lackluster support for their customers. Yeah well, you do the math.
According to a report that came out earlier this year in May, from TRM Labs. The number of hacks in Q1 of this year has stayed the same as Q1 of 2022. But the amount, on average, stolen has dropped significantly. "The average hack size also took a hit in Q1 2023 – to USD 10.5 million from nearly USD 30 million in the same quarter of 2022, even as the number of incidents was similar (around 40)".
Sadly tho TRM thinks this is more of a temporary thing than a trend we are seeing. I just hope the pattern from the rest of 2022 does not repeat itself. We do not really need another record-breaking year for hacks and exploits. If you like to take a look at the report from TRM there is a link to their site down below.
What are your thoughts on all these hacks and exploits we are seeing? Is it just the cost of doing business with crypto? Please share your thoughts with me and everyone else in the comment section.
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I never heard of this wallet. I hate this passphrase stuff.
I can't agree with you more there. I have heard of them, but not used them.
Since we don't know what was hacked yet - Atomic themselves, user's wallets, some password database somewhere, someone's wifi, etc etc - it's hard to say what the problem is. But it has to be fixed, of course, and whoever is responsible for it should be held accountable.
What I I do think is that the number of hacks over less than two years is too short a time to make reliable statistics from. If it snowed 4 days in December last year, and snows 5 days in December this year, that's a 25% increase! Sounds significant, but isn't really on such a short term comparison. I know it wasn't you who decided to make headlines with the stats though ;)
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Very true, I think the lack of accountability is really hurting the mainstream adoption of crypto. As it is now whenever something happens everyone responsible just seems to shrug and say "opsi, we will try to do better next time".
Yes one year is not very long indeed. But I work with what I got. =) And to much work to track the data myself. ^^