Bitrue Exchange Hacked, $4.3 Million Worth of XRP and ADA Stolen
Bitrue, a Singapore-based bitcoin (BTC) exchange, has suffered a massive security breach that has gifted hackers more than $4 million worth of XRP and Cardano (ADA) altcoins, announced the firm via Twitter on June 27, 2019.
Hackers Steal ADA, XRP from Bitrue
According to a Twitter thread by Singapore’s leading digital assets exchange, Bitrue, bad actors have successfully exploited a vulnerability present in its systems to steal huge amounts of crypto coins from its online wallet.
The exchange stated that at 1 am (GMT+8) on June 27, 2019, hackers managed to take advantage of a loophole in its “Risk Control team’s 2nd review process,” to steal the coins of roughly 90 Bitrue cryptocurrency traders.
Building on the success of that hack, the cyberpunks broke into Bitrue’s hot wallet and transferred 9.3 million XRP ($4.04 million at the time) and 2.5 million ($235,000) Cardano (ADA) to numerous exchanges, including Huobi Global, Bittrex, and ChangeNOW.io.
Per the team, as soon as the security breach was detected, it suspended all trading activities on the platform and promptly notified the receiving exchanges, which in turn froze the stolen cryptoassets, as well as the accounts of the crypto thieves.
The exchange has made it clear that affected users will get complete refunds as soon as possible, as its hot wallet is insured.
Bitrue claims to have also notified the relevant crime fighters in Singapore to assist them in hunting down the perpetrators of the crime. The exchange says it has initiated an emergency inspection operation to ascertain the extent of the damage.
Bitrue said that users would be temporarily unable to log in or conduct normal trading activities on their accounts, while withdrawals will be inactive for a much longer period.
“We are conducting an emergency inspection of the exchange and hope to be live again as soon as possible with login and trading functionality. Withdrawals will be offline for a slightly longer period while we continue to investigate the incident,” declared Bitrue.
In related news, earlier in May 2019, BTCManager informed that Binance lost a whopping 7,000 BTC (about $40 million then) to hackers. The exchange has since resumed normal trading activities.
