Bitcoin wallets on Android at risk of theft, developers say

August 12, 2013

Bitcoin wallets on Android are vulnerable to theft because of problems in a component that generates secure random numbers, developers said.The problem is said to be in the Android operating system and will affect bitcoin wallets generated by an Android app.Apps for which the user does not control the private keys are not affected, developers at Bitcoin.org wrote in a post on Sunday. Exchange front-ends like Coinbase or Mt. Gox apps are, for example, unaffected by the issue as the private keys are not generated on the user's Android phone.Bitcoin uses public-key cryptography so that each address is associated with a pair of mathematically linked public and private keys that are held in the wallet. The user signs a transaction to transfer bitcoins to somebody else with the private key, and the signature is validated using the public key.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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