Cryptocurrency ATM Manufacturer General Bytes Loses $1.50bln Worth Bitcoin in Hacking

A handful of mainstream organizations in the United States took a significant hit the week before. This time, the cryptocurrency seems to have experienced its share of setbacks, as a prominent international manufacturer of cryptocurrency ATMs was recently compromised by cybercriminals.

On March 17 and 18, one of the world's leading crypto ATM manufacturers, General Bytes, encountered a security issue. The intruder then liquidated 56.28 Bitcoins, which at the time of the hack was worth a staggering $1.5 million. Bitcoins were seized from owners of cryptocurrency ATMs in the United States. The total number of affected operators ranges from fifteen to twenty. A substantial portion of the nation's ATM providers have been forced to temporarily cease operations.

Just one day after the event occurred on March 28, the company took to Twitter to inform the public about it. The company informed consumers that a press release has been issued informing them to protect their personal data and money.

“On March 17 and 18, 2023, a security issue occurred at GENERAL BYTES. We issued a statement imploring customers to secure their private data immediately. We urge all of our customers to take immediate steps to secure their cash and private information and to carefully study the security bulletin. The business stated in a tweet.

The company clarified in its statement that the perpetrator surreptitiously uploaded its own Java application. Using the main service interface, which is usually used by terminals, the videos were loaded and executed with batm access rights.

On March 17 and 18, 2023, GENERAL BYTES experienced a security incident.

We published a statement urging customers to take immediate steps to protect their personal information.

We urge all of our clients to take immediate action to protect their funds and https://t.co/fajc61lcwR… https://t.co/g5FGqvqZQ7

— GENERAL BYTES (@generalbytes) March 18, 2023

This could end in gaining knowledge of data that would otherwise be considered private. The intruder was granted permission to use the database. The information could also read and decrypt the API keys used to gain access to funds in wallets and hot markets.

In addition, the intruder was able to send cash from hot wallets, obtain user identities and password hashes, and disable the two-factor authentication system. In addition, the intruder could access the console's incident logs and look for instances where consumers entered their private keys at an ATM. The bulletin also details steps customers can take to determine whether or not their server has been compromised.

“Examine the master.log and admin.log folders on your server to see the time intervals in which nothing was logged. Typically, a single day of events will be presented. The perpetrator deleted these records to hide his actions. This is a sure sign of an impending attack.” The circular clarified.