Cryptocurrency hackers trying to hack bitcoin are back

According to a recent report by Bleeping Computer, the infamous TeamTNT hacker group is back and is now trying to hack bitcoin. The attackers are reportedly taking over other people’s servers en masse and using their resources to run encryption decoders for the largest cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin uses the elliptic curve secp256k1 for its keys and signatures. When the cryptocurrency became popular, the choice of this particular implementation puzzled cryptography experts because secp256k1 was almost completely unknown compared to other solutions. TeamTNT hackers are trying to break the elliptic curve encryption with stolen resources.

At the moment, bitcoin is considered completely secure, as there are no machines that can hack it. However, some experts believe that it will be possible to hack bitcoin in the future. For example, Mark Webber, a quantum physicist at the University of Sussex, has previously predicted that a quantum computer with more than 300 million qubits could pose a serious threat to bitcoin. In this case, it would be necessary to launch a quantum-resistant hard fork to save bitcoin from supercomputers.

Bitcoin has never been hacked, which is one of its key advantages. However, Ripple CTO David Schwartz recently suggested that the BTC probably has serious bugs that have yet to be discovered.