More than $230 million in digital assets were lost as a result of a serious security breach at WazirX, the leading cryptocurrency exchange in India. The event, which happened on Thursday, July 18, resulted in significant withdrawals and a brief suspension of both INR and cryptocurrency withdrawals.
Security Breach Hits ‘India Ka Bitcoin Exchange’
In a tweet on X, formerly known as Twitter, WazirX—also known as “India Ka Bitcoin Exchange”—confirmed the hack. The company is one of the few exchanges in India registered with the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), which enables it to provide cryptocurrency exchange services to Indian citizens.
“We’re aware that one of our multisig wallets has experienced a security breach. Our team is actively investigating the incident. To ensure the safety of your assets, INR and crypto withdrawals will be temporarily paused. Thank you for your patience and understanding. We’ll keep you posted with further updates,” the company’s post on X read.
The Stolen Assets
According to third-party blockchain analytics tool Lookonchain, the stolen assets from WazirX included:
- $102 million in Shiba Inu
- $52.5 million in Ethereum
- $11.24 million in Matic
- $7.6 million in Pepe coin
- $135 million in Tether
- $3.5 million in Gala
These assets were taken from one of WazirX’s multisig wallets, significantly affecting user funds.
North Korea-Linked Hackers Suspected
Blockchain sleuth Elliptic suggests that North Korea-linked hackers might be behind the attack. “Transactional data shows the exploiter is actively selling the stolen holdings using the onchain exchange Uniswap. The exploiter is yet to sell their ETH holdings, and holds over $4.2 million in FLOKI tokens,” a report from Coindesk mentioned.
Impact on WazirX and the Cryptocurrency Market
The hackers exploited a vulnerability in WazirX’s systems to siphon off a substantial amount of cryptocurrency, including a large portion of the Shiba Inu (SHIB) token. This theft has led to a sharp decline in the value of WazirX’s native token, WRX.
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