Ethereum Sinks To New Low As Hackers Steal $20 Million Through Port 8584 Hack

Ethereum is witnessing a bit of a hefty decline at the moment. This is of course mostly down to the negative market trend that has flooded the markets, however, recent news about a hack does seem to have had a secondary impact on the value of the currency. At the time of writing, Ethereum is valued at $475.22, down 11.49%. Ethereum hasn’t reached values this low since before the mid-April market surge that took hold of the markets exactly two months ago. The alleged hack is said to have seen $20 Million lifted from the Ethereum network through an attack on Port 8584 (the RPC). This port is part of a number of ports that allow the Ethereum network to remain decentralised. Usually, only approved applications are able to gain access to these ports, generally for the purposes of harvesting data with regards to mining activity etc. Port 8584 (RPC) specifically grants such applications access to user’s data, including information about funds and private keys. According to BTCManager:

“Due to its sensitive role, the RPC is disabled by default. Developers include warnings to not switch on the interface unless the user is fully secured by advanced firewalls, access control lists, or credible authentication systems. As an additional measure, developers configure RPCs to accepts requests only from local interfaces instead of the third party. However, the report noted that experienced developers are increasingly tampering with Ethereum applications, augmenting function at the cost of user security. Additionally, users fail to carefully read the documentation and unknowingly install exposed applications – making them a prime target for attackers.”

The report in question here, refers to a report by 306 Netlab who had initially exposed the hack. As a matter of fact, they actually warned that it could happen back in March 2018. Now, it does seem as if this attack has happened through long term access to the port, therefore this is not an instant one-off occurrence that has seen a tonne of Ethereum stolen, instead, it has been a bit more of a drip feed process. Not that this makes it okay, I just guess it has less of a sudden impact on the markets. Above all, we should remember that $20 Million is an awful lot of money. You can read the full report by BTCManager for yourself, here- https://btcmanager.com/hacker-group-steals-over-20-million-of-ethereum-after-exploiting-port-8584/ For now, it does seem as if there is nothing more to worry about. As this news surfaces though, we do expect to see the volatility of Ethereum continue.