Bancor Has Gone Offline After a Security Breach

Bancor has temporarily suspended its activity following a “security breach” that occurred on the morning of 9th July. The platform has lost millions of dollars tune of crypto assets.

The decentralized network that converts tokens from users’ wallets has announced for Twitter followers on 9th July 2018 at 03:56 AM that it has gone offline after it experienced a “security breach“. According to the post, “no user wallets were compromised”

“To complete the investigation, we have moved to maintenance and will be releasing a more detailed report shortly. We look forward to being back online as soon as possible.”

This morning (CEST) Bancor experienced a security breach. No user wallets were compromised. To complete the investigation, we have moved to maintenance and will be releasing a more detailed report shortly. We look forward to being back online as soon as possible.

— Bancor (@Bancor) July 9, 2018

The company’s losses reached $ 13.5 million

Nate Hindman, Head of Communications of Bancor, revealed for CoinDesk that hackers managed to steal 25,000 ETH worth around $ 12.5 million plus about 230 million NPXS tokens worth $ 1 million. Instead, the Bancor team managed to ensure the safety of 2.5 million BNT tokens valued at $ 10 million.

According to the update posted on Monday at 01:35 PM, the company’s losses reached $ 13.5 million worth of cryptocurrency.

Here is the latest update on the recent security breach: pic.twitter.com/JroypFvBri

— Bancor (@Bancor) July 9, 2018

“We were able to freeze the stolen BNT, limiting the damage to the Bancor ecosystem from the theft. The ability to freeze tokens was built into the Bancor Protocol to be used in an extreme situation to recover from a security breach, allowing Bancor to effectively stop the thief from running away with the stolen tokens,” Nate Hindman explained, adding that:

“It is not possible to freeze the ETH or any other stolen tokens. However, we are now working with dozens of cryptocurrency exchanges to trace the stolen funds and make it more difficult for the thief to liquidate them.”

Bancor was noted for collecting a considerable amount of money from its Initial Coin Offering (ICO) at the launch time- $ 153 million. In addition to crypto exchange services, Bancor provides support for creating tokens.

As reported by Hindman, Bancor has “identified the cause of the breach and removed the vulnerability.”

“We expect Bancor to go back online in the next 24 hours. We will continue to post updates as and when appropriate on our Telegram channel and on Twitter,” he added.

Currently, the services offered by Bancor are not available on its website, as it is “doing some maintenance and will be back online soon”. The incident has greatly influenced the price of the Bancor coin. According to CoinMarketCap, BNT is traded at $ 2.56, down 14.47%.