Online Casino Stake.com was Hacked for More than $40 Million
In recent months, reports of crimes and scandals related to cryptocurrencies have appeared quite often in the news, from the collapse of FTX to cyber attacks involving the North Korean Lazarus Group. Now it's the turn of one of the largest gaming sites – Stake.com.
According to the media, the site suffered a serious hacker attack, as a result of which it lost 41 million dollars.
«On September 4, $41 million was withdrawn from cryptocurrency gambling site Stake in what blockchain security analysts called a "suspicious outflow". The withdrawal account was flagged by analytics platform Etherscan as "Stake.com Hacker", implying that the drained funds may be the result of private key theft».
Detailed Info on the Attack
Stake is an offshore gaming site that offers online casino, sports betting and more. The platform was founded in 2017 and quickly gained popularity.
According to Beosin Alert, a company engaged in online security and auditing in the field of online gambling, Stake.com accepts payment from its customers in several forms of cryptocurrency, so the theft of 41 million itself included withdrawals in the following form:
- Ethereum – $15.7 million
- Polygon – $7.8 million
- BSC – $17.8 million
After publishing this information, Stake.com confirmed the fact of the hack and the loss of funds, although they assured players that their personal data was not affected.
"Unauthorized (transactions) were made from Stake ETH/BSC wallets. We are investigating and will restore wallets as soon as they are fully secured", the team said on Twitter.
And later, Stake CEO Ed Craven stated that the lost funds were only a small part of their cryptocurrency reserves. He also assured that the hacking did not in any way affect the whole platform operation.
Other Examples of Such Issues
This is not the first case of hacking of online gaming sites. In May of this year, there was an attack on DraftKings that compromised 60,000 player accounts. In the same month, another completely closed Holland Casino Online for a while.
In April, French online gaming site Houlgate suffered a ransomware attack that took it offline for several days. Last September, PokerStars suffered a series of DDoS attacks during the annual World Championship of Online Poker. In the end, the site canceled several events and was forced to play them later after the problems were resolved.
According to Security magazine, on average, such cyberattacks cost gaming site operators $4 million, not including compensation for players' lost funds. Some experts believe that the gaming environment does not always meet the latest advances in online security.
«A key security issue facing the online gaming industry is lagging regulatory requirements in key markets. This has made online gaming easy prey for hackers. In the past year alone, security chiefs have witnessed a number of high-profile breaches in the industry».
Julianna Svyrydenko
