CoinEx suffers from a security breach, with over $27 million believed to have been compromised
Date: 2023-09-13 Author: Karina Ziganova Categories: CRYPTO PAYMENTS, BUSINESS
According to official reports on September 12, CoinEx suffered due to security breaches.
On Twitter, CoinEx announced that it had discovered a security incident involving an unusual removal of funds from hot wallets (wallets that contain exchange funds).
Illegal transactions consisting of Ethereum (ETH), TRON(TRX) and Polygon MATIC were identified by the company. The incident likely affected the XRP address from later statements from international CoinEx accounts.
In an official statement, CoinEx said it had not yet determined the value of the losses, but recorded the amount as a "very small part" of its assets as a "minor part." He posted on Twitter:
Your assets are safe and untouched by us, we trust all users. Parties affected by this violation will receive 100% compensation for any losses incurred due to this. Due to special security measures, deposit and withdrawal services have been temporarily suspended and will only be resumed after a thorough check.
Third-party security firm estimates losses at $27 million
The situation was discovered by independent security company Cyvers Alerts. Deddy Lavid, as CEO of Cyvers Alerts, said that "his organization made a lot of effort to establish contact with all senior officials of the company." He implied that CoinEx did not respond because he urged the exchange to contact his firm for more information about the threat.
The attack involved approximately $27 million in cryptocurrency, Cyvers Alerts estimates. This amount includes $18.12 million ETH, $8.5 million TRX and $291,000 MATIC. Most other ERC-20s are also included in this amount.
According to Syvers, the firm may have done something wrong or accidentally leaked the address's private keys. On the other hand, he suggested that the cause of the incident could have been deliberate violations such as “rug pulling” or inside work.
The incident is significant because CoinEx is a mid-sized exchange; trading volume amounted to $29.7 million in 24 hours and ended on September 12. The company was also flagged for its decision to exit the US market in February due to changing US regulations and after it drew scrutiny from New York state regulators.
