BitKeep Confirms Cyber Attack, Loses Over $9 Million in Digital Currencies

Dec 28, 2022

Dec 28, 2022Ravie LakshmananBlockchain / Android Malware

Decentralized multi-chain crypto wallet BitKeep on Wednesday
confirmed a cyberattack that allowed threat actors to distribute
fraudulent versions of its Android app with the goal of stealing
users’ digital currencies.

“With maliciously implanted code, the altered APK led to the
leak of user’s private keys and enabled the hacker to move funds,”
BitKeep CEO Kevin Como said ^[1], describing it as a
“large-scale hacking incident.”

According to blockchain security company PeckShield ^[2]
and multi-chain blockchain explorer OKLink ^[3], an estimated $9.9 million ^[4]
worth of assets have been plundered so far.

“Funds stolen are on BNB Chain, Ethereum, TRON and Polygon,”
BitKeep further noted ^[5]
in a series of tweets. “More than 200 addresses on the other three
chains were used in the heist, and all funds were transferred to 2
main addresses in the end.”

The incident is said to have taken place on December 26, 2022,
with the threat actor exploiting and hijacking version 7.2.9 of the
Android app package (.APK) file hosted on its website to distribute
the trojanized variant.

That said, the digital break-in doesn’t impact BitKeep apps
downloaded via Google Play, Apple App Store, or the Google Chrome
Web Store.

As many as five different counterfeit versions of the Android
app with the following package names have been identified,
suggesting that the apps were potentially distributed through
phishing websites. The legitimate package name is “com.bitkeep.wallet ^[6].”

com.bitkeep.app
com.bitkeep.w4
com.bitkeep.w5
com.bitkeep.wallet5
io.bitkeep.wallet

The Singapore-headquartered company, which was founded in 2018,
said it has traced the wallet address used to carry out the theft
and that some of the siphoned digital assets have been frozen.

Users who have downloaded the APK file for version 7.2.9 are
advised to install the latest version (7.3.0) released today and
transfer the funds to a newly generated wallet address.

This is not the first time BitKeep has been breached. On October
18, 2022, it disclosed ^[7]
another security incident targeting its BitKeep Swap service that
led to losses of about $1 million.

Found this article interesting? Follow us on Twitter ^[8]
and LinkedIn ^[9]
to read more exclusive content we post.

References

^{^}
said
(blog.bitkeep.com)
^{^}
PeckShield
(twitter.com)
^{^}
OKLink
(twitter.com)
^{^}
$9.9
million (twitter.com)
^{^}
noted
(twitter.com)
^{^}
com.bitkeep.wallet
(play.google.com)
^{^}
disclosed
(twitter.com)
^{^}
Twitter
 (twitter.com)
^{^}
LinkedIn
(www.linkedin.com)

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OWASP TOP !0

Injection. Injection flaws, such as SQL, NoSQL, OS, and LDAP injection, occur when untrusted data is sent to an interpreter as part of a command or query. The attacker’s hostile data can trick the interpreter into executing unintended commands or accessing data without proper authorization. Broken Authentication. Application functions related to authentication and session management are often implemented incorrectly, allowing attackers to compromise passwords, keys, or session tokens, or to exploit other implementation flaws to assume other users’ identities temporarily or permanently. Sensitive Data Exposure. Many web applications and APIs do not properly protect sensitive data, such as financial, healthcare, and PII. Attackers may steal or modify such weakly protected data to conduct credit card fraud, identity theft, or other crimes. Sensitive data may be compromised without extra protection, such as encryption at rest or in transit, and requires special precautions when exchanged with the browser. XML External Entities (XXE). Many older or poorly configured XML processors evaluate external entity references within XML documents. External entities can be used to disclose internal files using the file URI handler, internal file shares, internal port scanning, remote code execution, and denial of service attacks. Broken Access Control. Restrictions on what authenticated users are allowed to do are often not properly enforced. Attackers can exploit these flaws to access unauthorized functionality and/or data, such as access other users’ accounts, view sensitive files, modify other users’ data, change access rights, etc. Security Misconfiguration. Security misconfiguration is the most commonly seen issue. This is commonly a result of insecure default configurations, incomplete or ad hoc configurations, open cloud storage, misconfigured HTTP headers, and verbose error messages containing sensitive information. Not only must all operating systems, frameworks, libraries, and applications be securely configured, but they must be patched/upgraded in a timely fashion. Cross-Site Scripting XSS. XSS flaws occur whenever an application includes untrusted data in a new web page without proper validation or escaping, or updates an existing web page with user-supplied data using a browser API that can create HTML or JavaScript. XSS allows attackers to execute scripts in the victim’s browser which can hijack user sessions, deface web sites, or redirect the user to malicious sites. Insecure Deserialization. Insecure deserialization often leads to remote code execution. Even if deserialization flaws do not result in remote code execution, they can be used to perform attacks, including replay attacks, injection attacks, and privilege escalation attacks. Using Components with Known Vulnerabilities. Components, such as libraries, frameworks, and other software modules, run with the same privileges as the application. If a vulnerable component is exploited, such an attack can facilitate serious data loss or server takeover. Applications and APIs using components with known vulnerabilities may undermine application defenses and enable various attacks and impacts. Insufficient Logging & Monitoring. Insufficient logging and monitoring, coupled with missing or ineffective integration with incident response, allows attackers to further attack systems, maintain persistence, pivot to more systems, and tamper, extract, or destroy data. Most breach studies show time to detect a breach is over 200 days, typically detected by external parties rather than internal processes or monitoring.

BitKeep Confirms Cyber Attack, Loses Over $9 Million in Digital Currencies

References

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