South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb suffered an attack that allegedly led to the theft of USD 19 million in EOS and XRP. The exchange addressed the circumstances of the hack on Twitter, on Saturday 30 March.
Bithumb details that suspicious activity was first detected at 10:15 on 29 March in the manner of abnormal withdrawals. All funds following this detection were secured via cold wallet storage, while users accounts have been temporarily blocked from making any deposits or withdrawals.
An insider attack
The exchange took full responsibility for the attack, claiming that it had only concentrated its security efforts on external attacks and this appears to have involved ”insiders.” It also apologized to clients for neglecting to verify members of its staff.
Despite this incident being the second hack that Bithumb has been subject to in less than a year, a statement from the exchange promised there would be no further security compromises.
During this latest attack, the EOS hot wallet sent consecutive payments totaling USD 12.5 million into the attacker’s wallet before the exchange realized what was happening. According to a report from the Block Crypto, an additional USD 6.2 million in Ripple was also stolen.
It has been speculated that the attack came as a result of Bithumb’s employee layoffs which has reportedly affected up to 50% of the workforce.
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