Over $150M taken in KuCoin Crypto Exchange Hack
Over $150 million of KuCoin cryptocurrency exchange’s funds have been compromised in a security breach.
KuCoin said in a statement that it detected large withdrawals of bitcoin (BTC) and ethereum (ETH) tokens to an unknown wallet beginning on Friday.
In a live stream on Saturday, KuCoin CEO Johnny Lyu said that one or more hackers obtained the private keys to the exchange’s hot wallets. KuCoin transferred what was left in them to new hot wallets, abandoned the old ones and froze customer deposits and withdrawals, Lyu said.
KuCoin’s cold wallets were unaffected. Cold cryptocurrency wallets are not connected to the Internet and are considered more secure than hot cryptocurrency wallets.
More than 11,480 ether (ETH), worth over $4 million, was received into this address. A further $146 million involved transactions related to tokens such as ampleforth, maker, OMG and YFI – all decentralized finance (defi) tokens. Others include little known digital assets like chroma, vid, and ocean token.
Duncan is a technology professional with over 20 years experience of working in various IT roles. He has a interest in cyber security, and has a wide range of other skills in radio, electronics and telecommunications.