Spread A cybersecurity researcher with the pseudonym “nusenu” reports on how hackers managed to steal bitcoin by exploiting a vulnerability in the privacy browser “Tor”.

Hackers are exploiting the privacy browser Tor to steal cryptocurrencies, specifically targeting bitcoin mixing services.

As is well known about the Tor browser, it transfers traffic and password data through several different anonymous servers.

This means that it is very difficult to trace the identity.

When the search query, for example, reaches the final server called “exit relay”, the data appears on the Internet and the search result is output.

But the researcher found that hackers had run 24% of the network’s logout servers by May of this year.

Read:Federal Reserve Director: Cryptocurrency and Central Bank Digital Currency Report Ready to Launch

This is the most control they’ve had over Tor exit servers in the past five years, he told this researcher.

By controlling these exit relays, hackers can remove encryption protocols on websites to see and manipulate user data.

Researcher nusenu said they are using it to steal bitcoin, telling in this regard:

It seems that they are primarily targeting cryptocurrency related websites i.e. multiple bitcoin mixing services.

They substituted bitcoin addresses in HTTP traffic to redirect transactions to their wallets instead of the bitcoin address provided by the user.

While these types of man-in-the-middle attacks are not new, nor are they unique to Tor Browser, the scale of this particular attack is unprecedented, according to the report.

The researcher has reported the hacker’s actions to Tor administrators since May and many of them were deleted on June 21.

But hackers still control more than 10% of exit relay nodes, according to nusenu.

How malicious Tor relays exploit users in 2020 – Part 1 (Aug 9)

Colleges >23% of Tor network exit capacity attacks Tor users; For example the selective removal of redirects from HTTP to HTTPS.

Read:New Zealand court gives Cryptopia 10 days to submit its report

by nusenu ( )

/ c Tweet embed pic.twitter.com/iFmXLQEKLr

– Matthijs R. Koot (@mrkoot) August 9, 2020

Read:CoinEx reduces the evaluation criteria for platform ambassadors and doubles the rewards to reach 50%

The vulnerabilities come as a shock to those for whom Tor is the gold standard of web browser anonymity.

Tor is the interface many use to access the dark web, the lower part of the internet that houses drug markets and other illegal activities.

The browser is also used by whistleblowers and journalists who try to evade surveillance.

To fix the problem, the researcher proposes a short-term solution that limits the amount of exit relays, and a long-term solution with a certain amount of reliable operators.

Read also:

Hackers Launder $1.5 Million worth of Bitcoin in Binance!

Travel Company Pays $4.5 Million Bitcoin Ransom To Hackers