UK crypto exchange EXMO suspended its withdrawals today. This was a rather unexpected decision after they discovered suspicious withdrawal activity on the platform. The suspected hack appears to have affected the exchange’s hot wallets. However, EXMO said that the money in their cold wallet is still safe.
Attention!
We detected suspicious withdrawal activity. All withdrawals are temporarily suspended. We’re investigating the issue and taking measures to protect your funds.
If any user fund is affected by this incident, it’ll be covered completely by EXMO.https://t.co/QCtOGRFE65— EXMO (@Exmo_Com) December 21, 2020
EXMO paused withdrawals after detecting large withdrawals from its hot wallets
Through a post on the website, EXMO claims to have noticed large withdrawals from its hot wallets around 02:27 UTC on Monday. Specifically, a large number of cryptocurrencies including BTC, XRP, USDT, ETC, and ETH suddenly disappeared from the hot wallets of the previous exchange on December 21st. property of the foundation.
Even so, all the money in the cold wallet is safe. If the security breach affects any user, EXMO will indemnify all of their losses.
As part of an ongoing investigation into the potential hack, six wallet addresses (one for each affected asset) emerged. EXMO is calling on fellow exchange platforms and service operators to block any addresses connected to these wallets. The exchange reported the breach to London Police. It also conducted a full review of security procedures in place.
Currently, the company has halted all withdrawals from its wallet. They also advise the client not to deposit money into the exchange.
Maria Stankevich, Business Development Manager at EXMO, said:
“We were currently investigating the security breach. All assets in cold storage remained safe.”
This is not the first time EXMO has been attacked. At the end of 2017, EXMO’s Head of Analysis & Trading, Pavel Lerner, was kidnapped in Ukraine. The masked men appeared to have kidnapped Lerner near EXMO’s Kyiv office around the time Bitcoin hit its all-time high of 2017. He was missing for three days. After the kidnappers received 102 BTC in ransom (~ $ 2 million at the time), he reappeared.
At the time, observers had speculated that Lerner’s disappearance could be part of an attempt to trick users into trading their assets. However, EXMO repeatedly states that Lerner does not have access to user funds and there is no major disruption to activity at the platform.
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