- Remitano crypto exchange was hacked for $2.7 million worth of crypto assets
- Tether stepped in and froze $1.4 million in USDT reducing the loss
- Crypto industry weathers a difficult period of increased crypto hacks
The crypto industry has suffered yet another attack this week after Remitano, a crypto exchange, was hacked on September 14. As a result, the crypto exchange lost about $2.7 million worth of assets in various cryptocurrencies, $1.4 million of which was frozen by Tether, reducing losses.
Remitano is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency exchange and payment processor that specializes in emerging markets. It serves customers in Pakistan, Ghana, Venezuela, Cambodia, Kenya, Malaysia, India, South Africa, Vietnam, and Nigeria.
The attack on the exchange was identified when Remitano’s known hot wallet was noted sending large amounts of assets to an address with which it had no history. The new address received Tether worth almost $1.4 million, USD Coin worth $208,000, and 104,000 Ankr tokens which were each worth $2,000 at the time.
As has been the case with the other attacks this week, Cyvers Alert, a blockchain security firm, blew the whistle on the hack via a post on X saying “ALERT Our ML-driven system has detected
multiple anomalous transactions with Remitano exchange, resulting in a total loss of $2.7M across 3 chains.”
Following the alarm on these transactions, Tether, the issuer of the USDT stablecoin, froze the $1.4 million USDT, preventing the major share of the total assets from being completely lost.
Remitano’s address on the attack was issued the following day where the crypto exchange acknowledged that it had indeed been hacked.
“[O]ur Security Management team discovered a data breach from a third-party source that had compromised some of our sensitive information,” the company posted on X. “As a result, through unauthorized withdrawal transactions, a small amount of funds from the exchange’s hot wallets were transferred to suspicious wallet addresses.”
The exchange, however, went on to assure its customers that user funds “have NOT been and will NOT be affected by this incident”. Additionally, users could expect deposits and withdrawals to resume within 48 hours. The team reported that while deposits and withdrawals for Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin are still available, other networks might not be.
Crypto Industry Battles Rising Threats as Losses Surpass $1 Billion in 2023
This attack comes barely two days after another crypto exchange, CoinEx, was exploited for over $55 million worth of crypto assets. While the perpetrator of the Remitano hack is yet to be identified, the CoinEx attack was executed by North Korean hackers, Lazarus Group.
The government-sponsored group was also responsible for another attack on crypto-gambling site, Stake.com, barely a week earlier. In this hack, Lazarus Group made away with $41 million worth of assets in several cryptocurrencies.
The crypto industry is going through an increased wave of crypto hacks, scams, and attacks that as of August 31 had caused the loss of over $997 million in assets. While the attacks are coordinated by various hackers, North Korean hackers particularly account for at least 30% of the losses incurred so far this year.
Governments and crypto companies are working to up their security and educate their employees against social engineering hacks. However, hackers are also advancing their tools and techniques making it difficult to secure assets.
