Experts in digital forensics from the International Institute of Cyber Security have confirmed that a group of hackers recently exploited a Vulnerability in the Bitcoin code to print approximately 235 million of Pigeoncoin (worth about 15458 dollars). It should be noted that Pigeoncoin is a digital currency recently launched and very little known so far.
The reason these hackers achieved this extraordinary attack is that many of the new cryptocurrencies developed over the years have borrowed the public Bitcoin code to use it as their own. When an error was identified in Bitcoin, a patch was immediately released, but the cryptocurrencies that were not patched are at risk.
Piegoncoin maybe it’s just one of these vulnerable cryptocurrencies. The Bitcoin developer code issued a statement asking virtual assets developers to correct their software: “online wallets and exchanges must be updated immediately to resolve this vulnerability from Bitcoin code”.
According to experts in digital forensics, the exploitation occurred on September 26; This serious inflation error (identified as CVE-2018-17144) is responsible for the printing of an enormous number of cryptocurrencies. The vulnerability allows an attacker to print as many currencies as necessary and can even overcome the rigid code limits that are imposed on the cryptocurrency blockchain. Of course, the attack has affected the value of all the other virtual assets that are currently in the hands of investors.
Pigeoncoin is not actually a conventional digital currency and is not even ranked among the 1000 main digital coins in terms of value. Pigeoncoin uses a X16r mining algorithm and developers use a blockchain to prevent the data collection of malicious cybercriminals, which has proved insufficient to adequately protect this currency.
Pigeoncoin has a total of 970 million coins in exchange, of which the attacker could print 235 million, about a quarter of the total. CryptoBridge, the only exchange compatible with Pigeoncoin, has temporarily suspended the currency trade as experts in digital forensics analyze the situation and determine the actions to undertake.
Either way, the vulnerability has already been fixed and it has not yet been seen how the attacker will change the stolen cryptocurrency for now, as it would need to convert Pigeoncoin to another more widely accepted virtual asset.
Information security specialist, currently working as risk infrastructure specialist & investigator.
15 years of experience in risk and control process, security audit support, business continuity design and support, workgroup management and information security standards.
