Bitcoin vulnerability fixing time delay highlights virtual currency Defects

A chief programmer responsible for solving bitcoin software code problems said the work will not be completed until next week. This highlights the defect of this virtual currency. On Monday, hackers began to attack several of the world's largest Bitcoin trading markets to exploit this code vulnerability to send fraudulent requests and then resend successfully completed remittances. This vulnerability has forced the related trading market to suspend the user withdrawal service.

The Tokyo-based Mt. Gox bitcoin marketplace said on Monday that the company had received some fraudulent requests. Bitcoin core developers found the vulnerability in their digital infrastructure later that day. Early the next day, hackers began to use this vulnerability to attack other exchanges.

The delay in fixing code problems may damage external confidence in bitcoin. The price of this virtual currency has soared over the past year and has been recognized by some sellers.

"It takes two or three days to write the code, but it takes longer to test and determine that it will not cause other problems ." Gavin Andresen, chief scientist at the Bitcoin Foundation, said. Anderson is one of the five team members responsible for solving the problem.

Another member of the team, Jeff Garzik, has designed a temporary solution for major exchanges to clear and adjust their bitcoin accounts, restore it to operation.

The world's largest bitcoin-dollar market, Bitstamp, headquartered in Slovenia, announced earlier on Friday that it is expected to resume its withdrawal business later that day.

Mt. gox CEO Mark Karpeles also said in a developer chat room that the company will soon launch a new certification system to track bitcoin withdrawal, hoping to combat attacks, and resume operation. However, the company has not yet commented.

It is unclear whether the two exchanges have deployed relevant measures, but their official website has not updated the information as of Friday afternoon.

The Coindesk bitcoin price index shows that bitcoin prices rose by 8.63% to $650.61 on Friday.

The total market value of Bitcoin has already exceeded 8 billion US dollars, with thousands of enterprises and digital wallets closely linked to it. This also puts a lot of pressure on the maintenance team behind Bitcoin.

"The real challenge is how to do your job well when the outside world is full of noise ." Anderson said. After bitcoin was attacked, many payment processors, brokers, and digital wallet providers sent a large number of inquiries to them. "A single-minded or casual use may cause great danger. This is perhaps the biggest challenge: not only focus, but also listen carefully to others' voices and their suggestions, complaints, and accusations ."

Mt. Gox announced early on Monday that someone had used Bitcoin's underlying vulnerability to trick the exchange into sending remittances that had already been sent. Anderson denied the incident on the Bitcoin Foundation blog that day, saying that Bitcoin is okay.

However, one member of the five teams confirmed the vulnerability that afternoon. Early the next day, hackers used this vulnerability to launch attacks to Bitstamp and BTC-e. Jiazek said that hackers collected all transactions on the bitcoin network and copied them with new identifiers to send a large number of fraudulent requests to the computer network in the Bitcoin trading market.

Bitcoin details: click here
Bitcoin: click here

Related reading: Install BitCoin in Ubuntu 10.04 +