Nearly 34,200 contracts can be exploited to steal Ether and even freeze or delete the assets

A scan of nearly one million Ethereum smart contracts has identified 34,200 vulnerable contracts that can be exploited to steal Ether, and even freeze or delete assets in contracts the attackers don't own.

For the average user not familiar with the world of cryptocurrencies, smart contracts are a set of coded operations that get executed automatically when someone sends an input to the contract. Here's a basic example of how a smart contract can look like:

Consider an Ethereum smart contract that is used to auction off a digital [object]. The contract has variable "x" that counts the number of bids made on the [object]. The owner may want to prolong the bidding on the object and might set up a contract condition of "x>100" before allowing the object to be sold to the highest bidder. Once this condition is met, the smart contract automatically initiates an Ether transaction with the winner and releases a sale order for the [object].

Smart contracts are one of the reasons why the Ethereum network and its cryptocurerncy —Ether— are so popular. Smart contracts is what powers most of today's ICOs, but they also run various other Ethereum-based services and tools.