Hackers Steal $5.4 Million From Slovak Crypto Exchange, Eterbase

Eterbase stands as a crypto exchange based in Slovakia and is the latest victim of a hacker group. The exchange lost $5.4 million in cryptocurrencies, with the hackers having stolen it earlier this week.

Hacking An Array Of Hot Wallets

Through a message posted on Telegram, Eterbase detailed how it suffered a breach in six of its hot wallets. As a result, the exchange saw losses of Ethereum, Bitcoin, Algorand, Ripple, Tron, and Tezos.

The exchange’s statement made it clear that it had already contacted law enforcement about the matter at large and stated that it would assist the ongoing investigations as much as it can.

Doing The Needed Damage Control

Even with the loss, Eterbase had made it clear to its traders that the exchange still has enough capital to meet all the needed obligations of their traders. What this means, is that they’re capable of repaying victims from the exchange’s own pocket. Alongside this, Eterbase also made it clear that operations will continue on the exchange, but only after a security audit has been completed. This audit is currently ongoing.

In the statement, Eterbase explained that its operations would continue after a security audit “of renowned global companies” have been made. It assured its traders that it would announce when the Eterbase exchange can renew its operations as soon as it possibly can.

Stolen Crypto Funds On The Move

While Eterbase is putting out fires and trying to regain its operational ability, the hackers that stole the money from the various hot wallets have not been idle. These hackers have been shuffling these assets around multiple exchanges, as well as converting some assets into others. In particular, some of the stolen Ether had been converted into Tether, a stablecoin backed by USD, then moved to Compound and Uniswap, decentralized crypto exchanges. Some of the stolen assets were even shuffled towards Binance, a centralized crypto exchange.

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some snapshots of the simple use of our tracing tools for Eterbase incidents.
ChainLink Token, Synthetix Network Token, ETH token pic.twitter.com/b3XO4gkxDM

— Nobel Tan (@nobel_tan) September 8, 2020

While the stolen assets can only be observed within the decentralized platforms, the centralized exchanges the hackers shuffled their assets to have already been contacted. From there, it’s requested that these assets be frozen, or have these deposits be blocked from liquidation.

Crypto Exchanges Frequently Targeted

In terms of the big fish of the crypto exchange, Eterbase is a relatively small player. Prior to the hack, Eterbase had only handled around $3 million in daily trading volumes, according to Coingecko.

Regardless of size, many a crypto exchange has reported some sort of security breach in the past, which led to hundreds of millions of USD in cryptocurrency being stolen. The most infamous of these is the Mt Gox hack, which led to the exchange being forced to close up shop, in the end.

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