15,000 Ethereum Stolen From Liquid Exchange by Crypto Gangsters
While the industry is still reeling from the consequences of Mr. White Hat’s breach of the Chinese Poly Network, another heist was carried out recently.
The hacker attacked one of Japan’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges. The attack resulted in the thieves making off with $97 million of digital assets. The breach was announced on Twitter by the Liquid Exchange. In a series of tweets, Liquid notified netizens of the developments in the case.
They announced that the theft compromised warm wallets and that action would be taken to prevent further damage by transferring all digital assets to the cold wallet. The tweets announced that subsequent investigations into the theft would ensue. Co-ordinately, deposits, and withdrawals would be temporarily suspended.
The company disclosed the wallet addresses that the hackers used to steal the digital assets. The company has also shut down all activity on the site so they can get a better grasp of the damage wrought by the hackers. The hacker’s main targets were Tron (TRX), Bitcoin (BTC), Ripple (XRP), and Ethereum (ETH).
The hacker’s method of accessing funds involved coin mixers. Coin mixers pool and clean cryptocurrencies in a random manner. Using this coin mixer, the hackers stole half the digital assets. So far, 6000 Ethereum, which values about $20 million, has been moved to anonymous wallets via the coin mixers.
The platform used was the UNISWAP decentralized exchange, where ERC20 tokens were swapped and stolen in exchange for more liquid Ether. Currently, efforts are being made to recover the stolen digital assets numbering 9600 Ethereum that has yet to be transferred from the hacker’s wallet. The 9600 Ethereum is worth $32 million, but the Japanese Liquid Exchange is positive that the assets may still be recovered.
