(Bloomberg) -- Indian crypto exchange WazirX said it halted withdrawals from the platform after discovering that one of its wallets had been breached, an exploit that analysts suspect was carried out by North Korean hackers.
WazirX, in a statement on its X account, didn’t give an estimate of the amount of crypto that may have been lost. Blockchain security firm Cyvers said $234.9 million of assets have been drained from the exchange and moved to a new address.
Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic said in a blog post that hackers affiliated with North Korea appear to have carried out the hack.
“The North Korea attribution is based on similarities in the types of services used by these hackers in the past, as well as similarities in their transactional behavior,” Tom Robinson, co-founder of Elliptic, said in an email.
Based on the Cyvers estimate, the amount lost from the multiple-signature wallet on WazirX would be one of the biggest crypto thefts in recent years and comes just a month after Japanese crypto exchange DMM Bitcoin lost over $300 million in a hack, renewing concerns around the sector that has been vulnerable to similar exploits.
“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,” the exchange said on social media platform X on Thursday.
Leakage of a private key providing access to the wallet led to the hack, according to Yajin Zhou, chief executive of security firm BlockSec.
“The leaked private keys are used to upgrade a safe multi-sig wallet, which holds a large number of assets, to a malicious contract,” Zhou said. “Then the malicious contract is used to drain most of the assets in the safe wallet.”
WazirX’s total assets stood at about $500 million in June, according to its most recent proof-of-reserves report.
The Indian exchange fell under the global spotlight after becoming embroiled in a dispute with Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, over ownership of the platform. Binance announced it was acquiring WazirX in a blog post in November 2019, and then clarified in August 2022 that the deal was limited to an agreement to buy certain assets and intellectual property. The clarification came after India’s anti-money laundering agency froze some WazirX assets.
(Updates throughout with details on suspected North Korea involvement)
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