General Bytes, the maker of Bitcoin ATMs, recently became the target of a hack attack after its systems were compromised. An internal investigation by the General Bytes team revealed that hackers gained access to its ‘Crypto Application Server’ (CAS) and managed to withdraw funds. The CAS server is responsible for enabling the buying and selling of Bitcoins from ATMs. After gaining access to the CAS, the hackers declared themselves as administrators of the CAS and transferred all received BTC to their own wallets.
Prague, Czech Republic-based company Key In the report The company, which owns and operates more than 8,800 Bitcoin ATMs in more than 120 countries, confirmed the attack and asked ATM users to refrain from using its machines for the time being.
“The CAS security fix is provided in two server patch releases, 20220531.38 and 20220725.22. Do not run your GB ATM server until you have implemented the fix. Reset all user passwords,” a Blog post General Bytes said.
According to the company, the attack came three days after it announced a ‘Help Ukraine’ donation feature on ATMs.
So far, General Bytes has not revealed the exact amount of money stolen by the hackers in the attack. At the time of writing, BTC was trading at $21,295 (roughly Rs. 17 lakh) on international exchanges like Binance and CoinMarketCap.
The crypto sector is gradually expanding worldwide. In the background, the installation of Bitcoin ATMs around the world has also increased in recent times.
According to a recent report by Coin ATM Radar, more than 882 Bitcoin ATMs were discovered in different parts of the world in the first ten days of June this year.
For now, the US has the most BTC ATMs, making up 87.9 percent of its global network, the report said. There are currently 33,400 crypto ATMs in the US.
So far, popular companies that provide crypto ATM services include General Byte, Genesis Coin, BitAccess, CoinSource, and BitStop.
These ATM machines that facilitate the buying and selling of bitcoins remain under the watchful eye of law enforcement agencies, which are trying to protect members of the crypto community from financial mishaps.
Last year, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), however, warned people against using crypto ATMs, especially those that advertise anonymity for transactions.
Earlier this year, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) ordered all crypto ATMs in the country to suspend services, citing illegal operations.
