Dogecoin, the virtual currency that was named after a silly meme but has been described as a potential successor to Bitcoin, was successfully hacked for the first time today, with Dogewallet users losing an estimated 21 million Dogecoins. The incident was confirmed by Dogewallet in a Reddit post after users reported disappearing Dogecoins on Doges.com’s forum. We’ve emailed Dogewallet to see if it has additional information beyond what its shared so far.
Dogewallet has promised to fully refund all lost coins and has temporarily shut down its site.
Each Dogecoin is currently worth about US$0.00057. Together, the stolen Dogecoins are the equivalent of about $12,000, which is not a massive amount, but still a loss for users who spent a lot of time accumulating the virtual currency.
In its Reddit post, Dogewallet said that they are “currently looking at logs and have found thousands of attempts to hack our systems.” The hacker gained access to Dogewallet’s filesystem and modified its send/receive page to send coins to a static address.
The incident is a reminder that all online wallets are vulnerable to hacking.
“We’re incredibly sorry to all users who lost funds from the attack. Please use offline wallets as online wallets are meant for new users who aren’t using them as storage of coins. Offline wallets are more safe and secure than any online wallet due to possible attacks that can originate from anyone, anywhere,” Dogewallet posted on Reddit.
