Coinbase Bug Briefly Gave People Unlimited Ether Coins

Cryptocurrency is the tech world’s answer to traditional payment methods and physical currency, which allows decentralized and untraceable transactions.

These days, cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are mostly being traded on online cryptocurrency exchanges. These exchanges provide a unified platform to their users to buy, sell, and store cryptocurrency, however, they are entirely digital and vulnerable to hacks and intrusions.

This also opens them up to bugs and glitches that can put people’s wallets at risk.


ALSO READ

Crypto Bloodbath Continues as Bitcoin Drops Below $8000


Unlimited, Free Ethereum

One of the most popular exchanges, Coinbase, faced a similar bug which, if exploited, let users transfer unlimited Ether into their accounts through simple steps. This bug has been dealt with, for now. An IT security firm called VI Company first reported this bug and helped fix it.

An Unwanted Christmas Present?

VI Company “accidentally” found this bug when they decided to gift their employees some Ether as a Christmas present. The method was simple; users could create a false transaction to fool digital wallets into recording a transfer of Ether. Anyone could transfer as much Ether as they wanted into their account by creating false transfers to their name.

VI Company received $10,000 in bounty from Coinbase for reporting the bug and has now been fixed by the crypto-exchange. VI Company published a full report on their discovery, which you can read here.



Get Alerts

Follow ProPakistani to get latest news and updates.


ProPakistani Community

Join the groups below to get latest news and updates.



>