Google has managed to spot and solve a problem that appeared due to complaining users of the bitcoin wallet extension KryptoKit yesterday.
Google, an America based multinational corporation, has managed to spot and solve a problem that appeared due to complaining users of the bitcoin wallet extension KryptoKit yesterday and also made lots of people to worry that their digital currency might be irretrievably lost.
KryptoKit, the bitcoin wallet and encrypted messaging extension for Chrome browsers. On 20th May the users of KryptoKit started announcing that the extenion was mysteriously auto-removing itself from users computers without any notice. Moreover, the extension had also disappeared from the Chrome app store.
After such reports, the KryptoKit project developers tried their best to find a solution to aproblem, and soon they found out that Google was behind the sudden removal.
Even though Google restored KryptoKit’s account a few hours after the problem was found, it did not make any explanation of its actions.
At last, Google’s Chrome team last night explained via reddit what actually happened. The Google Chrome Product Manager Tyler Odean apologized for the uncertainty and explained the cause of the problem.
Odean specified that no information was compromised or removed from user machines:
“What happened in a nutshell was that real malware was mimicking KryptoKit, which caused our blacklisting protections to get confused.”
Moreover, it was mentioned that the malware developer was trying to steal bitcoin keys through the KryptoKit codebase. The codes were almost identical, that is why Google blocked the real KryptoKit extension, blacklisting it along with the malware version.
The Google team realized the mistake and reenabled KryptoKit on users’ machines as soon as the problem appeared on reddit.
Tyler Odean pointed out that Google’s views upon bitcoin stay the same:
“Obviously this is a learning experience for us and we are continuing to perfect our protections in the webstore. But we wanted to emphasize that we are definitely not seeking to limit Bitcoin extensions in general or the KryptoKit extension in particular – but rather trying our best to keep users safe from malicious exploits.”
Furthemore, Mr. Odean said many Chrome team members are bitcoin fans, and ended his post on reddit with the words that are showing that he is one of those enthusiasts: “Cheers, Tyler, Bullish”.
Konstantin has always been at the forefront of the global virtual currency scene since first discovering cryptocurrencies the same year that Satoshi Nakomoto created bitcoin in 2009. Konstantin is the owner of a number of small businesses in trucking and mobile development, and co-founded CoinSpeaker in 2014. He graduated from Belarusian State University in 2009 with a degree in Mathematics and Mechanics. You can contact Konstantin via [email protected]