A single hacker or a malicious entity controls more than 23% of the nodes utilized on the anonymous internet service provider, Tor Network, and used its place to steal crypto bitcoin and some other popularly used cryptocurrencies. Nusenu, a cybersecurity analyst using the pseudonym, said in a report this week that a malicious agent now manages approximately 23% of the anonymous internet provider, Tor Network’s exit relay magnitude.
The Tor Network offers its users anonymous internet service with voluntarily run relays that control traffic in order to obscure users’ identifiable and verifiable IP addresses. The exit relay is the ultimate stage that associates customers to their desired websites anonymously. As per the reports, the malicious entity or the hacker used her/his position as the utmost exit relay host to stage a cultured person in the middle attacks, stripping sites of safety and encryption and providing her/his all of the unrestricted access to traffic going through their servers.
The malicious programmer/hacker mainly focused on crypto bitcoin mixing services, replacing the wallet locations to the mixer returns “clean” funds to the malicious agent than the original owners of the crypto. Further in the report, Nusenu went on to say, a shortfall of enforcement on Tor Network shows that the malicious agent has acquired more than 10% of her/his share of the exit relay, last December. It’s uncertain to know at this point of time how much cryptocurrency has been stolen and if the hacker is involved in more such type of attacks.
Further for the security measures single bitcoin mixer service as a supplemental security layer to prevent future hacking attacks removing the website’s encryption. However, we are still unaware of the identity of the malicious agent, and also it is unclear if there is any other motive for the attack other than stealing cryptocurrencies.