NiceHash Hack

TOTAL LOST $64.0M
High #104 All-Time Other

Summarize with AI

ChatGPT Perplexity Claude Grok
Affected Chain 2017 Incident surface
Recovered - No recovery reported
All-Time Rank #104 By amount stolen
Protocol Type Exploit/Other Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

Crypto-mining marketplace NiceHash reported about a hack on their website. 64,000,000 worth $BTC was stolen.

Details of the Exploit

NiceHash is a Slovenia-based cryptocurrency-mining marketplace. The project confirmed that its website was breached and the payment system compromised, with the contents stored in its Bitcoin wallet stolen. The losses reportedly amount to nearly 4,700 $BTC or 64,000,000 $USD.

NiceHash posted a statement on its website addressing the incident. “Unfortunately, there has been a security breach involving the NiceHash website. We are currently investigating the nature of the incident and, as a result, we are stopping all operations for the next 24 hours.”

Block Data Reference

The hacker's address:

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1EnJHhq8Jq8vDuZA5ahVh6H4t6jh1mB4rq

Incident Report

Protocol / Project NiceHash
Date of Incident
Attack Technique Other
Classification CeFi
Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exploit/Other
Official Website www.nicehash.com/
Protocol Twitter/X @NiceHashMining
Team Anonymous
Source Code Unverified

What the Attacker Needed to Succeed

Understanding the prerequisites for this type of attack helps auditors identify protocols that are most at risk and helps developers build better defenses.

Technical Knowledge Deep understanding of other and Solidity and EVM internals
Capital Required Seed capital to cover gas and initial position setup
On-Chain Access Ability to interact with smart contracts and deploy a custom exploit contract
Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in NiceHash's contract logic - root cause: cefi
Execution Speed Precise transaction ordering and timing to exploit the vulnerability within a single atomic block
Obfuscation Plan A strategy to launder and move stolen funds - typically through mixers, cross-chain bridges, or decentralized DEX swaps to resist tracing

What Auditors Should Check

Could this have been caught in audit? Likely — with a thorough Other audit checklist and test coverage

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to NiceHash, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (December 2017).

  • Verify all logic paths related to Other are guarded by proper access controls and input validation
  • Review privileged functions (owner, admin, governance) for potential abuse vectors - centralization risks should be documented and bounded with timelocks or multi-sigs

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Sources & References

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