Major Cryptocurrency ATM Manufacturer General Bytes Hacked, Over $1.5M in Bitcoin Stolen

According to the company and sources, General Bytes experienced a security incident on March 17 and 18 that allowed a hacker to remotely access the main service interface and send funds from hot wallets. The hack forced most crypto machine (ATM) operators in the US to temporarily close. The hacker managed to liquidate 56.28 bitcoins worth about $1.5 million from 15 to 20 cryptocurrency ATM operators across the country.

Crypto ATM operators temporarily shut down after a general byte security breach allowed a hacker to liquidate $1.5 million in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies

The largest manufacturer of cryptocurrency ATMs (ATMs), Shared bytesproduced 9505 such machines around the world, thousands of which are located in the United States. On Saturday, March 18, the company informed the public a major security incident that also occurred on 17 March.

“We have issued a statement urging customers to take immediate action to protect their personal information,” the company explained at 4:42 pm ET on Saturday. “We urge all of our customers to take immediate action to protect their funds and personal information and read the security bulletin carefully,” the company added.

Shared bytes security bulletin said the attacker was able to remotely download his own Java application using the main service interface that is commonly used by terminals to download videos. The attacker had access to the user’s BATM privileges, and could also access the database, read and decrypt the API keys used to access funds in hot wallets and exchanges. In addition, the hacker could download usernames, access their password hashes, disable 2FA, and send funds from hot wallets.

Bitcoin.com News spoke to a U.S. ATM (ATM) operator who confirmed that all U.S. operators using General Bytes machines were offline across the country for the evening. The operator also mentioned that the servers would have to be rebuilt from scratch, which could be a lengthy process.

General Bytes is reportedly moving crypto ATM operators to its own servers. In a security bulletin, General Bytes said the company was ending support for the cloud service. Additionally, the firm clarified that it has conducted several security reviews since 2021 and none of them have identified this vulnerability.

According to network statistics, the hacker siphoned off 56.28 bitcoins worth about $1.5 million and also liquidated dozens of other cryptocurrencies, such as Ethereum, USDTbdollar usa, ADADAI, DOGE, SHIB and TRX. bitcoin (BTC) address holding 56.28 BTC has not transferred funds since the last transaction at 3:20 am on March 18th. Some digital currencies were transferred to different places, and some were sent to the Uniswap decentralized exchange (DEX) platform.

General Bytes has already run into problems record security flaw on August 18, 2022. The attacker at the time used a zero-day attack to “create an admin user remotely through the CAS administrative interface by calling a URL on the page that is used to set the default on the server and create the first admin user”.

Regarding the hack on March 17 and 18, 2023, General Bytes disclosed not only the addresses used in the attack, but also the three IP addresses used by the attacker. The source, who spoke to Bitcoin.com News on Saturday night, also noted that while their firm’s system was compromised, the company runs a full node that is “sufficiently locked down” to prevent an attacker from accessing the funds.

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