KickICO suffers $7.7m hack attack

Blockchain-based fundraising platform, KickICO, has been hacked, losing 70,000,000 Kick ($7.7 million).

It said in a statement: “On 26^th July at 9:04 (UTC) we experienced a security breach, which resulted in the attackers gaining access to the account of the Kick smart contract — tokens of the KickICO platform. The team learned about this incident after the complaints of several victims, who did not find tokens worth $800,000 in their wallets.”

It added: “At the moment, control over the smart contract has been fully restored. The project team asks all those whose tokens have been stolen to email report@kickico.com for the return of funds to wallets. We guarantee to return all tokens to KickCoin holders. We apologise for the inconvenience, but claim that the situation is under control.”

It seems that the hackers gained access to the private key of the owner of the KickCoin smart contract. In order to hide the results of their activities, they employed methods used by the KickCoin smart contract in integration with the Bancor network. They destroyed tokens at approximately 40 addresses and created tokens at the other 40 addresses in the corresponding amount, so the total number of tokens in the network has not changed.

The community quickly spotted something was up and helped KickIOC’s team address the problem. “We were able to regain control over the tokens and prevent further possible losses by replacing the compromised private key with the private key of the cold storage. At the moment the problem is completely eliminated, the wallets of KickCoin holders are safe,” the company says.

It’s déjà vu all over again

It’s the second hacking incident involving the Bancor network this month. Further details here.