IANS | 15 Sep, 2023
Global cryptocurrency exchange CoinEx has announced that its hot
wallets were hacked and large amounts of digital assets stolen, which
were used to support the platform's operations.
The incident
occurred on September 12, and preliminary assessment indicated that the
unauthorised transactions involved Ethereum ($ETH), Tron ($TRON), and
Polygon ($MATIC) cryptocurrency.
"On September 12, 2023, our Risk
Control System detected anomalous withdrawals from several hot wallet
addresses used to store CoinEx's exchange assets. Promptly recognising
the gravity of the situation, we immediately established a special
investigative team to delve into the matter," CoinEx Global wrote on X
(formerly Twitter).
"The precise amount of the loss is still
being determined, and the affected fund is just a very small portion of
CoinEx's total asset," it added.
While CoinEx has not provided
any information about the financial impact incurred because the
investigation is still ongoing, a more recent estimate on the CoinEx
losses from 'CertiK Alert' raises the figure to $53 million.
"The
@coinexcom exploit losses have now reached an estimated $53 million
taking the total losses for private key compromises this year to $377.7
million," CertiK Alert posted on X.
Moreover, the cryptocurrency firm said that the affected users will receive full compensation for any loss due to this breach.
"Affected
parties will receive 100 per cent compensation for any loss due to this
breach. For added security, deposit & withdrawal services are
temporarily suspended and will resume after a thorough review," CoinEx
said.
However, it's not confirmed who hacked the CoinEx server
and stole from them, but blockchain investigator ZachXBT believes that
the North Korean state-backed group 'Lazarus' is responsible for this
breach.
"It appears North Korea is also responsible for the $54M
@coinexcom hack from yesterday after they accidentally connected their
address to the $41M Stake hack on OP & Polygon," ZachXBT said.
The
threat group was linked to the theft of $35 million from Atomic Wallet
in June, $60 million from Alphapo and $37.3 million from CoinsPaid in
July.