Hackers steal $ 3 million from the largest cryptocurrency miner

Mining company BIT Mining Limited has reported a hacker attack on the BTC.com pool. According to the press release, the incident occurred on December 3. Representatives of the company emphasized that they reported the incident to law enforcement agencies in Shenzhen (China). on December 23, the authorities launched an investigation.

«As a result of the cyberattack, the assets of BTC.com customers worth about $ 700,000 were stolen, as well as $ 2.3 million belonging to the company. Following the detection of this cyberattack, the company has implemented solutions that improve protection against hackers. BTC.com is now operating as usual,» BIT Mining Limited said.

The company has already managed to return part of the pool’s funds, although it did not specify how it did it.

In the summer of 2021, BIT Mining moved some of its mining farms from China to Kazakhstan. This happened after the Beijing authorities banned cryptocurrency mining throughout the country. In addition to Kazakhstan, BIT Mining has also invested in data centers located in Texas, USA.

According to the Web3 and smart contract security platform Immunefi, in the third quarter of 2022, the total losses of the crypto industry from hacking and scam amounted to $ 428.7 million. Out of 39 incidents, 30 were hacker attacks, and the losses amounted to $ 399 million.

Currently, miners are going through hard times, as the profitability of mining in 2022 has dropped significantly. Some mining companies are selling off cryptocurrency mining rigs in order to cover losses due to the fall in the value of digital assets on the market. The sale of equipment is also driven by the need to pay off loans that have not been repaid— during the period of rising cryptocurrency prices, mining companies actively purchased machines and rented premises for them, often on credit.