Silk Road 2.0 hacked for $2.7mn in bitcoin

Silk Road 2.0 has been reportedly hacked by attackers who made off with nearly 2.7 million dollars in bitcoin, the site's complete holdings.

Administrator of the second incarnation of the online anonymous black marketplace, known as Defcon, has claimed that hackers exploited the same 'transaction malleability' that caused temporary transfer shutdowns at bitcoin exchanges BitStamp and Mt Gox this week.

According to The Verge, Defcon said that a claims a vendor exploited the bug during a vulnerable moment in the site's relaunch process, initiating and hiding a flood of transactions until the accounts were emptied.

The relaunch process required unusually lax security procedures by the site, with little separation between vendor wallets and escrow holdings.

The report said that although the site is officially active, the administrators have implemented strict new security protocols that would make transactions significantly more difficult.