British Crypto Exchange EXMO Loses $10 Million In Hack

UK-based cryptocurrency exchange EXMO announced today that it was hacked. The exchange lost 5% of its assets valued at $10 million.

Cyberattack causes loss of funds

The exchange, which has offices in Kyiv, Moscow, and London, recently lost 5% of its assets located in hot wallets to a cyberattack. EXMO released a statement informing users of the hack, writing,

“We have spotted some large withdrawals since December 21st at 2:27:02 UTC. We are still investigating the incident, but as of now, the security audit report showed that some amounts of BTC, XRP, ZEC, USDT, ETC, and ETH in EXMO’s hot wallets were transferred out of the exchange.”

The platform highlighted that the assets were lost from its hot wallets and its cold wallets are completely safe. The platform suspended all withdrawals after the hack was discovered and asked its clients not to deposit fresh funds until further notice.

It also asked all exchanges and services to block accounts connected to these wallets.

What caused the hack?

The firm said in its statement that it is investigating the cause of the hack. According to EXMO UK’s chief business development officer Maria Stankevich, they are still calculating the value of funds stolen by hackers. She also noted that if users are affected by the hack, they will be compensated via the firm’s insurance fund. The Block analyst Igor Igamberdiev said that the losses could be to the tune of $10.5 million.

EXMO said that the case has been reported to London Police and the firm is in touch with the Cybercrime team. It also plans on conducting a thorough security review of its entire data and systems.

This is not the first high profile hack in the crypto sector in 2020. Ledger, a hardware wallet manufacturer, also got hacked. Malicious actors gained access to the company’s data and leaked emails of one million users on their website.