On July 23, 2018, the most popular Ethereum block explorer site Etherescan.io was hit malicious attack. According to Motherboard , the hackers were able to use the website’s comments section to introduce malicious code. However, the attack revealed to be more like a prank than a real attack. Even so, while it was apparently harmless, it exposed a vulnerability that could have caused a lot more troubles that could have affected the entire cryptocurrency industry.
The Hack
The hacker was able to add a pop-up to the site displaying “1337” which is universal hacker jargon for “you have been hacked.” As soon as Etherscan users noticed the hack, they ran onto Twitter to shout out to other users about the issue. The Etherscan team immediately took notice and tried to fix the problem. Later that day, the team made a Reddit post commenting on the whole event.
Even though the team has confirmed that the attack did not have any impact on the user’s funds, the comment section was immediately disabled. According to the Reddit post , the malicious code introduced by the hacker in the comment section of the site contained a line which executed itself in the browser of any user visiting the site. The team also stated it was already working and testing a patch to fix the issue.
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