It’s happened again, folks. Another cryptocurrency exchange hack is in the books. This time, the victim is EXMO based in the United Kingdom. At the time of writing, roughly five percent of the platform’s assets have disappeared.
EXMO Has Been Hacked
EXMO reported earlier in the week that several of its hot wallets had been compromised by thieves. This is consistent in the crypto space and it has been reported time and time again that hot wallets do not possess the security and strength of cold storage. For one thing, they are connected to the internet, which means that anyone with a valid connection and a little technical know-how could potentially reach in and compromise the funds in question, which appears to be what happened.
Cold storage, by contrast, is not connected to the internet. All assets in cold storage are kept offline, making them much harder to steal.
At press time, EXMO has more than 27,000 customers and has a daily trading volume of roughly $52 million in crypto funds. Thus, it’s not the largest digital currency trading platform out there, but it still sees healthy spurts of business. The company has suspended all its withdrawals for the time being and is asking all customers to remain on standby while executives examine what could have happened.
The company has put out the following statement:
We are still investigating the incident, but as of now, the security audit report showed that some amounts of BTC, XRP, ZEC, USDT, ETC and ETH in EXMO’s hot wallets were transferred out of the exchange. We reacted immediately and re-deployed hot wallets. The affected hot wallets comprise nearly five percent of the total assets. Let us stress that all the assets in the cold wallets are safe.
Initially, the company placed the following message on social media to let users know that if they’ve lost money due to the attack, they will be quickly reimbursed by the exchange:
Attention! We detected suspicious withdrawal activity. All withdrawals are suspended. We’re investigating the issue and taking measures to protect your funds. If any user fund is affected by this incident, it’ll be covered completely by EXMO.
As it stands, the platform has already brought law enforcement agents on board who are now examining the evidence. In the meantime, executives are conducting reviews of all the platform’s present security systems to see if there are any doorways to future hacks that can be sealed off.
Don’t Put Money In Your Accounts
The company has also asked that while the investigation is going on, customers refrain from depositing any digital funds into their accounts. EXMO states:
In the meantime, we ask you NOT TO DEPOSIT ANY FUNDS TO THE EXISTING EXMO WALLETS. All the withdrawals are suspended for the time being.
