An unidentified 36-year-old man who owns a Bitcoin account has lost more than 100,000 euros ($117,000) worth of Bitcoins while he was logged in on a public wireless network in a restaurant in Vienna, Austria.
The Austrian police, however, claimed that they are still investigating whether the victim’s account was already hacked before he opened his account on the unsecured network, CBS reports.
This latest case reflects the growing concern over the security of digital currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum amidst their growing popularity as a mode of payment.
Perhaps the most infamous loss of Bitcoins due to security issues took place in 2014 when the Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox has collapsed following a breach on its platform and a significant amount of cryptocurrency was stolen. The exchange’s former CEO, Mark Karpelès, is currently being tried in Japan on charges of data manipulation and embezzlement.
Other cases of security breaches
In mid-2017, the biggest Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange in South Korea, Bithumb, was also assaulted by hackers and stole cryptocurrencies worth an estimated 1.2 bln won or more than $1 mln. A man from Pennsylvania has also admitted that he stole $40 mln worth of Bitcoins just recently.
Cryptocrimes
Despite these incidents, the digital currencies continue to increase in popularity among investors. Because of this, Ethereum price, for example, has already surged by 2,600 percent in just a matter of months from just $8.17 in early 2017. The leading cryptocurrency Bitcoin, meanwhile, has increased to over $8,000 so far from $1,027 early in the year.
During trading in New York on Nov. 21, 2017, Bitcoin price has reached a new record high of $8,339 despite earlier losses in the day due to the reported $31 mln theft of Tether.