IOTA Network Paused Until Further Notice!
The IOTA Foundation, a nonprofit organization that develops the IOTA network, has decided to temporarily halt all operations on the network because hackers took advantage of a devastating wallet vulnerability on Feb 12th, 2020 resulting in over $1.5 million worth of IOTA being stolen.
Source: https://status.iota.org/
The hack occurred with the popular desktop and mobile Trinity wallet. Investigations are pointing towards the theft of private keys being the reason for the attack, which would enable full access to wallet accounts. By halting the IOTA network, the hacker’s stolen funds have been unable to reach exchanges, according to updates released on Friday.
Currently, #IOTA is working with law enforcement and cybersecurity experts to investigate a coordinated attack, resulting in stolen funds. To protect users, we have paused the Coordinator and advise users not to open Trinity until further notice. Updates: https://t.co/ME3Cvki3k9
— IOTA (@iotatoken) February 13, 2020
The IOTA community is now questioning how decentralized the IOTA network truly is if it can be “turned off” when the IOTA Foundation chooses!
As the days have passed, progress has been made with tracking the stolen funds and reporting the situation to law enforcement. According to the IOTA status page and updates, the network (at the time of writing) is still offline but the IOTA Foundation aims to restore full functionality ASAP.
“We are building a new analytics toolset (utilising our permanode) that tracks funds in real time. This tool will help support the ongoing investigation.” – IOTA Foundation
A fixed update for the compromised Trinity wallet is set to be released in the coming days. The Foundation recommends that users of the wallet upgrade once the new version is released.
“We have also remediated the vulnerability in Trinity. The upcoming Trinity update will not function as a final transition tool, as we are still working on bringing the network back to full operation. If you have Trinity installed on your computer, we highly recommend you upgrade to this version when released.” – IOTA Foundation
IOTA Different From the Rest?
Most popular digital assets use blockchain technology, in which each transaction or piece of information is contained in blocks that are cryptographically linked to the previous (parent) and next (child) that is generated.
IOTA does not use blocks and it is not a blockchain. It uses a directed acyclic graph (DAG), more widely referred to as a “Tangle.” Other cryptocurrencies such as Nano and Hedera use similar technology.
Each square box in the above diagram represents a transaction on the IOTA network. For every new transaction, two more random transactions are validated in the Tangle.
Despite the debate around IOTA’s technology being a viable solution for payments and building an Internet 2.0, IOTA has turned heads around the world, working alongside Jaguar, testing smart charging with Tesla cars, and also integration in identification cards.
This post is for educational purposes. All information used is referenced accordingly. This is not investment advice; please always do thorough research and only invest what you are willing to lose, especially in times of uncertainty.