An 18 years old Japanese boy was arrested yesterday by Japan Police for allegedly stealing cryptocurrency monacoin worth $134,000 reports Japan times.
The boy is from the city of Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture. Name undisclosed because he is a minor. The culprit allegedly stole the coins after hacking Monappy between 14th August and 1st September 2018. Monappy is a website where users can keep and transfer the virtual currency monacoin.
He was able to hack into the website using a software called Tor. With Tor it was difficult for the website owners to identify who is accessing the system. He used the feature of money transfer to site users which was enabled on the website. Finding out the weakness inherent on the site, he was able to make repeated transactions into his account.
He sent out transfer request to himself in which 7,700 user accounts were affected. The transferred monacoins were sent out to a separate monacoin account outside the website. The Japan police was able to investigate and identify him by analyzing the website communication records left on the website’s server.
According to operators of Monappy, the stolen monacoins were kept on an online wallet which made it possible for the hack to occur. Monappy however, says the monacoins kept on the offline wallet are still safe. The police reports that he admitted to the allegations against him after much interrogations with him. He said, “I felt like I’d found a trick no one knows and did it as if I were playing a video game.”
It will be recalled that Japan has recorded too many Cryptocurrency theft in the past. Notable among them includes — the Mt. Gox cryptocurrency exchange hack in which 850,000 bitcoin were lost. Another hack was that of Tokyo-based Cryptocurrency Exchange Coincheck Inc that recorded $520.26 million hack in 2018.
The regulatory framework for cryptocurrency activities in Japan is more or less favourable for cryptocurrency companies. Japan records the highest in the number of cryptocurrency users worldwide because of its clear regulations on cryptocurrency. Over 16 government regulated cryptocurrency exchanges are currently functional in Japan.
The security of using Cryptocurrency still remains an important issue of discussion. Offline Wallets serves as the recommended option for storing cryptocurrencies. Online wallets are vulnerable to cryptocurrency hacks. And as such requires a better improved security layer to secure funds.
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