Over $ 150 million of funds from an Asian cryptocurrency exchange were compromised due to a security breach.
KuCoin exchange under attack
Singapore-based digital asset exchange KuCoin has publicly stated that it has detected large withdrawals of bitcoin (BTC) and ethereum (ETH) tokens on an unknown wallet as of 19:05 UTC on Friday.
In a live stream at 4:30 UTC on Saturday, KuCoin CEO Johnny Lyu said that one or more hackers have obtained the private keys of some of the exchange's hot wallets. KuCoin moved what was left over to new hot wallets, ditched old ones, and froze customer deposits and withdrawals, Lyu said.
KuCoin's cold wallets were not affected during the attack, Lyu said. Cryptocurrency cold wallets are not connected to the internet and are considered more secure than cryptocurrency hot wallets.
In an updated statement on its website, KuCoin released a list of BTC, bitcoin SV (BSV), ETH, LTC, XRP, Stellar lumens (XLM), Tron (TRX) and Tether (USDT) wallet addresses where they are stolen funds have been transferred.
According to data from blockchain explorer Etherscan, two Ethereum wallets belonging to KuCoin have sent more than 11.480 ETH, which are currently trading at a price of around $ 350, to the address of the Ethereum wallet associated with the hack.
The address of this Ethereum wallet - quotation in real time - also received over 150 Ethereum-pegged tokens worth over $ 150 million from the same two Ethereum wallets on KuCoin, Etherscan data shows.
The other identified wallets received exactly 14.713 BSV, 26.733 LTC, 18.495.798 XRP and 999.160 USDT, along with over 1.008 BTC, 9.588.383 XLM and 199.038.936 TRX, according to the blockchain explorer Blockchair and Tronscan.
The addresses related to the hack included in the black list of other well-known exchanges
Cryptocurrencies are trading around approximately $ 10.700 for BTC, $ 165 for BSV, $ 45 for LTC, $ 0,25 for XRP, $ 0,07 for XLM, $ 0,02 for TRX and $ 1 for USDT respectively, at time of press. Tether and several cryptocurrency exchanges such as Bitfinex promptly blacklisted the wallet addresses, according to an updated statement.
According to cryptocurrency data site CoinGecko, over 200 crypto assets are traded on KuCoin with a combined average daily volume of around $ 100 million, ranking it as one of the most active trading exchanges.
The price of KuCoin's KCS token fell 14% to $ 0,86 within an hour on Saturday as news of the security breach spread across social media. KuCoin is investigating the attack with international law enforcement and the money stolen from customers will be "fully covered" by an insurance fund, Lyu said.
