Maximum 47 years in prison for EtherDelta exchange hack

The two men that are being accused of hacking crypto exchange EtherDelta can get a maximum sentence of 47 years in prison. The United States attorney’s office for the Northern District of California has accused Elliot “Planet” Gunton and Anthony Tyler “Psycho” Nashatka for EtherDelta cryptocurrency exchange hack. They filed five cases against the two. Planet and Psycho hacked EtherDelta in December 2017 and managed to steal at least 308 ethereum and hundred thousands of dollars worth of crypto tokens.

Gunton and Nashatka managed to alter the domain name system (DNS) settings of the exchange. The create a fake version of EtherDelta and managed to obtain cryptocurrency addresses and private keys. After that they withdrew funds contained in those addresses. According to reports they stole at least 800 thousand dollars from just one person.

The attorney’s office has accused them of the following:

1. Conspiracy to commit computer fraud and abuse
2. Transmission of a progam / information / code to cause damage to a protected computer
3. Unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain value
4. Conspiracy to commit wire fraud
5. Aggravated identity theft

Crypto exchanges can always be hacked

There’s a saying in the crypto community: “Not your keys, not your money”. But the EtherDelta hack is proof that even an exchange that doesn’t store private keys can be hacked. Cryptocurrency exchanges come with all kinds of problems, and it’s always important to stay fully aware of the things that are happening. In January hackers robbed Cryptopia, while others managed to steal 41 million dollars from Binance in May this year.

There are plenty of ways to hack in the world of crypto. Last week a hacker spend 1000 dollars to manipulate a gambling game and win 110 thousand dollars worth of EOS. Other examples are miners who steal electricity or hackers that install malware to steal access to crypto accounts. Even mobile phone SIM-cards aren’t safe, as hackers steal someone’s identity and request a new SIM-card. After that they can circumvent all 2-step authentications and possibly gain access to wallets and exchanges.

Originally published at NEDEROB.