Just days after the DragonEx exchange got hacked, BitHumb, the largest cryptocurrency exchange of South Korea has been hacked for the second time for a huge number of EOS and XRP coins.
The Bithumb exchange was also hacked last year which led to around $30 million of cryptocurrencies being stolen. The exchange was able to recover only $14 million of the same and had shut down its deposit and withdrawals for months after the hack.
Bithumb Hacked: Yet Again
According to Dovey Wan, the founding partner of Primitive Ventures who cite information from local blockchain analytics firms and cyber-security firms, the EOS wallet of the Bithumb exchange was hacked yesterday (Friday) i.e. 29th March 2019, which has led to around 3 million EOS being stolen. 3 million EOS according to current market price are valued at around $12.5 million.
BREAKING 🚨🚨🚨
Bithumb is being hacked, at its EOS cold storage level!!! Over 3million EOS has been transferred out 👀👀👀
Detail to be reported, confirmed by security firm who’s auditing for Bithumb
— Dovey Wan 🦖 (@DoveyWan) March 30, 2019
From an initial look at the wallet, it appears that the hot wallet of the exchange was hacked and not its cold wallet.
This is just insane –
1. It’s the second major Bithumb hack so they literally learned NOTHING from last time
2. Why keeping $15m in a single wallet?? high amount withdraw needs lengthy verification anyway..
Will keep everybody posted with @chiachih_wu @evilcos
— Dovey Wan 🦖 (@DoveyWan) March 30, 2019
There has not been any official announcement from the exchange regarding the hack, however, analysts are believing that the hack took place because around 3 million EOS were transferred to different cryptocurrency exchanges such as Huobi, Changelly, KuCoin, CoinSwitch and EXMO. However, around 63 percent of the hacked funds are still in the wallet of the hacker.
According to CoinDesk Korea, Rohan from the EOSauthority team is pretty sure that the private keys of Bithumb was stolen. Also Bithumb has shut down the deposits and withdrawals on the platform stating the reason as “in order to provide more stable service”.
[Notice]
In order to provide more stable service, proceed with a temporary check on the cryptocurrency deposit and withdrawal service.
For more details >> https://t.co/eF0tWnolvF— Bithumb (@BithumbOfficial) March 29, 2019
