The KuCoin cryptocurrency exchange has announced an unauthorized withdrawal of funds from hot Bitcoin wallets, ERC-20 tokens, and others. According to some reports, the amount of damage can reach $ 150 million.
(1/4) We detected some large withdrawals since Sep 26 at 03:05 UTC+8. According to the latest internal security audit report, part of BTC, ERC-20 and other tokens in KuCoin’s hot wallets were transferred out of the exchange, which contained few parts of our total assets holdings
— KUCOIN (@kucoincom) September 26, 2020
In a statement, the exchange noted that assets in cold storage are safe. The platform promised to reimburse all losses of users from the insurance fund.
KuCoin CEO Johnny Liu confirmed that a hacker attack was the cause of the incident. According to him, the exchange has already applied to law enforcement agencies.
The CEO of KuCoin stated that the reason for the stolen currency was the hacker’s attack on the private key of the hot wallet in the early hours of the 26th. They has contacted the exchange to block the hacker’s transfer address and reported to the international police. pic.twitter.com/pr0eM6xRdS
— Colin Wu（WuBlockchain） (@WuBlockchain) September 26, 2020
The KuCoin team has launched an internal investigation into the incident.
KuCoin, a well-known Chinese exchange, suddenly suffered a serious coin loss. Twitter said it was worth 150 million US dollars. Report learned that the amount of losses currently counted is about 40 million USDT, and it has not been found to be a sign of a hacker attack. pic.twitter.com/K7nz66LROY
— Colin Wu（WuBlockchain） (@WuBlockchain) September 26, 2020
After the Bitfinex and Tether CTOs were hacked, Paolo Ardoino reported that the exchange froze 13 million USDT on the EOS blockchain, and the stablecoin issuer blocked 20 million USDT on one of the Ethereum addresses “as a precautionary measure.”
PSA: re #KuCoin hack@bitfinex froze 13M Tether USDt on EOS as part of the hack@Tether_to just froze 20M Tether USDt sitting on this Ethereum address https://t.co/GYmESH44da as precautionary measure.
Stay safe everyone!
— Paolo Ardoino (@paoloardoino) September 26, 2020