NEO users may be at risk of having their funds stolen, as a security vulnerability could see hackers steal their funds using remote access to their wallets, according to China’s internet giant Tencent.
Through a post on Chinese social media platform Weibo, Tencent’s Security arm claimed that after looking into the NEO blockchain it found that if a user starts running a network node using default configurations and opens a wallet, it’s a risk of seeing hackers remotely access it.
Tencent’s post reads
Lab Monitoring the famous blockchain project NEO (corresponding to the digital currency “antcoin”) has the risk of remote piracy. When a user starts the NEO network node with the default configuration and opens the wallet, the digital currency may be remotely stolen
The firm’s security lab claimed to have submitted a warning to NEO’s developers and node maintainers. It urged users to pay attention to the security of their wallets and update them as soon as possible.
Notably, NEO is a popular smart contract and decentralized application (dApp) platform that is often seen as the “Chinese Ethereum” as it is largely popular in the country, and has similarities to how Ethereum itself works.
The altcoin was one of the most affected by the crypto bear market, as it went from an all-time high near the $200 mark to little over $8 at press time. Despite the drop, it’s still one of the top altcoins out there, as it has a market cap of $520 million.
Tencent’s announcement seems to not have affected NEO holders as it’s dropping at about the same rate as the rest of the cryptocurrency ecosystem. At press time, CryptoCompare data shows NEO is down by about 2.2% in the last 24-hour period.
Earlier this year Tencent, known as China’s Facebook, was believed to be involved in the pre-Initial Public Offering (IPO) of cryptocurrency hardware manufacturing giant Bitmain. The company, as CryptoGlobe covered, denied its involvement.
