EXMO which is one of the most popular crypto exchanges in Ukraine and Russia has suffered a hack. As per the reports, the hacker (or hackers) was able to withdraw almost 10.5 million USD worth of funds which amount to about 5% of EXMO’s assets. The attack was pointed at EXMO’s “hot” wallets. The exchange did not disclose the specific amount of the total loss it suffered due to the attack.
However, the exchange made public the list of stolen coins along with their addresses. The analysis points towards Poloniex, that is most of the funds have been sent to Poloniex. The lost coins include Bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), XRP, ether classic (ETC), Tether (USDT), and Zcash (ZEC); 292 BTC (amounts up to $6.5 million). These have been stolen as per the analyst Igor Igamberdiev’s statement. He further revealed the rest of the units include 867 ETH (approx $521,900), 476,521 XRP (about $247,700), 20,651 ETC (almost $126,800), 50,000 USDT ($50,000) and 39,285 ZEC (about $2.7 million). All of the stolen currency, including the ETH, XRP and the USDT, has been sent to Poloniex, a global crypto-to-crypto exchange headquartered in Seychelles.
EXMO said that they are busy investigating the attack, and as a countermeasure has asked all other exchanges to block accounts associated with the affected wallets. The exchange tried to restore faith in its users and said that if any user is affected by this hack, they will completely cover their losses. The exchange further mentioned that as opposed to the hot wallets, its ‘cold’ wallets are still safe. Cold wallets refer to offline vaults, whereas hot wallets are online wallets connected to the internet.
While the investigation takes place, EXMO has stopped all deposits and withdrawals, and that the incident has already been reported to the London police. It was only recently that EXMO got their temporary registration from the Financial Conduct Authority of the U.K. where it is headquartered.
