WazirX, India's largest crypto exchange, suffers $235 million hack
What's the story
India's leading cryptocurrency exchange, WazirX, has suffered a significant security breach resulting in the loss of almost $235 million in crypto assets. The exchange confirmed the incident in a recent post and announced a temporary suspension of Indian rupee (INR) and crypto withdrawals to protect user funds during the ongoing investigation. The breach was initially reported by Cyvers Alert, a security firm, early on Thursday in a post on X.
Twitter Post
Take a look the warning post made by Cyvers
🚨ALERT🚨Hey @WazirXIndia, Our system has detected multiple suspicious transactions involving your Safe Multisig wallet on the #ETH network.
— 🚨 Cyvers Alerts 🚨 (@CyversAlerts) July 18, 2024
A total of $234.9M of your funds have been moved to a new address. Each transaction's caller is funded by @TornadoCash.
The suspicious… pic.twitter.com/4sajAwd4Hb
Hacker's moves
Hacker's actions detailed, funds converted to Ethereum
Cyvers Alert revealed that the hacker stole crypto assets from WazirX's Safe Multisig wallet and transferred them to a new address. These funds were then converted into Ethereum (ETH). The firm detailed the hacker's actions, stating: "The suspicious address has already swapped $PEPE, $GALA, and $USDT to $ETH and continues to swap other digital assets." Despite attempts to contact WazirX at the time of discovery, Cyvers Alert reported receiving no response from the exchange.
Remaining assets
Hacker still holds $100 million in Shiba Inu, says investigator
On-chain investigator ZachXBT provided further insight into the hack. According to him, at the time of reporting, the hacker still possessed $100 million in Shiba Inu (SHIB) and $4.7 million in Floki Inu (FLOKI). As this is an ongoing situation, further updates will be provided as more information becomes available. The investigation continues as WazirX works to recover from one of the largest security breaches in its history.