Hotbit cryptocurrency exchange suffered a serious cyber attack, declared shut down seven days to two weeks for maintenance
Crypto exchange Hotbit shut down all its services following a cyber attack on Thursday. According to the announcement, they suffered a serious cyberattack that resulted in downtime and maintenance.
Hotbit’s official Twitter channel also announced the hack:
We just suffered a serious cyber attack starting around 08:00 PM UTC, Apr.29, which led to the paralyzation of a number of some basic services
All funds r safe, we will update our latest Maintenance progress everyday
Details: https://t.co/JtSIPlvfOg pic.twitter.com/XhCWXU9a4s
— Hotbit (@Hotbit_news) April 30, 2021
Hotbit crypto exchange shuts down for maintenance after an attempted hack
After the attack, some of the underlying services were paralyzed, and the attacker attempted to access the exchange’s wallet. As a result, the platform was shut down, and a comprehensive test required to take place is expected to last one to two weeks.
A notice on the platform’s website stated:
“Hotbit just suffered a serious cyber-attack starting around 08:00 PM UTC, April 29, 2021, which led to the paralyzation of a number of some basic services.”
The hackers allegedly failed to gain access to Hotbit’s wallet but attempted to compromise the platform’s user database. Therefore, the Hotbit team recommended that clients ignore any communications from organizations claiming to be representatives of the exchange.
With all normal operations currently on hold during the ongoing maintenance, Hotbit also revealed that pending trade orders will be canceled to avoid losses. Additionally, the exchange undertakes to bear any losses resulting from the exchange trading funds listed on its platform during the maintenance period.
According to Hotbit’s announcement, the maintenance will last at least seven days with reports that the investigation and system upgrade could take up to two weeks.
Following the hack announcement, crypto transfers were spotted from Hotbit’s addresses. The exchange claims that the transfers resulted from them creating a new cold wallet.
About transfer on the chain, that is because we are creating new cold wallet. Don’t worry, all funds are safe:)?
Here is our wallet address ，users can check all the time:)
Hotwallet 1:
0x274f3c32c90517975e29dfc209a23f315c1e5fc7 eth— Hotbit (@Hotbit_news) April 30, 2021
Speaking to users on the exchange’s Telegram group, Alex Zhou, Hotbit’s chief security officer, revealed that users’ funds were not affected by the attack, stating:
“The attacker tried to break into the wallet server to steal funds but the action was identified and blocked successfully by Hotbit risk control system. All users’ funds are safe. At the same time, Hotbit is in the process of transferring all funds in the hot wallet to a cold wallet, the details of the whole integration could be seen on the chain.”
Source: Etherscan
Indeed, data from Ethereum transaction monitoring tool Etherscan shows a lot of token flow from one of Hotbit’s known wallets to another that currently holds around $ 14 million in several altcoins.
However, the timeframe taken for maintenance is causing considerable volatility among Hotbit users rated by comments on social media and on the platform’s Telegram channel.
Fear of the incident is a scam that escapes the Hotbit team can touch. In early April, two major Turkish exchanges went offline, with their executives fleeing with millions of dollars in user funds. Both incidents have resulted in full arrests by law enforcement agencies as well as a government plan to establish a central custodian bank for cryptocurrency exchanges in Turkey.
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