India’s leading crypto exchange WazirX hit with $230 million hack

Key Takeaways

WazirX has suffered a security breach targeting one of its multisig wallets.
The attacker reportedly stole over $230 million worth in crypto assets, including $100 million in Shiba Inu (SHIB).

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WazirX, India’s top crypto exchange, was hit by a security breach on Thursday, the company confirmed the incident in a recent statement. The estimated loss is over $230 million at the time of reporting.

The exchange said it would temporarily suspend Indian rupee (INR) and crypto withdrawals to protect user funds while investigating the incident.

The attack was initially reported by security firm Cyvers Alert early today. According to Cyvers, a suspicious address withdrew approximately $235 million worth of crypto assets from WazirX’s multisig wallet, transferred the funds to a new address, and then converted them into Ethereum (ETH).

“The suspicious address has already swapped $PEPE, $GALA, and $USDT to $ETH and continues to swap other digital assets,” Cyvers Alert noted, adding that the hacker used Tornado Cash, a privacy-enhancing tool, to obscure the movement of funds.

The Cyvers team claimed to have attempted to contact WazirX at the time of discovery but received no response.

According to on-chain investigator ZachXBT, the hacker still has $100 million in Shiba Inu (SHIB) and $4.7 million in Floki Inu (FLOKI) at press time.

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