In Brief:
- Crypto.com becomes the latest victim of a hack attack.
- The platform allegedly lost about $15M worth of crypto but the firm’s CEO denied the occurrence of fund loss.
- Crypto.com enhanced the security measures and asked users to reset their 2FA following the event.
Cryptocurrency platform Crypto.com becomes the latest victim of a hack attempt as the platform revealed that some of its users have reported suspicious activity in their accounts.
Crypto.com halted withdrawals and began an investigation on the issue as reports started flowing in from users saying their crypto was missing from their balances.
Users were unable to make any withdrawals, and those who had pending withdrawals were unable to complete their transactions.
This was done in an attempt to stop the hackers from making any further withdrawals from the affected users’ accounts.
Dogecoin founder Billy Markus was among the users who reported to Crypto.com about the unusual activity happening in the Ethereum hot wallets.
The platform reassured users that no funds have been lost but according to reports from blockchain auditing firm Peckshield, Crypto.com lost about $15M worth of crypto assets including 4.6k ETHs.
TornadoCash, a non-custodial anonymous Ethereum transaction dapp, is said to have been used by the attached addresses to wash out half of the funds.
TornadoCash employs a smart contract that accepts ETH deposits, which can then be withdrawn via a different address. When ETH is withdrawn using the new address, it is impossible to link the withdrawal to the deposit, ensuring total privacy.
Kris Marszalek, the CEO of Crypto.com appears to be denying any fund losses, stating that the team hardened the infrastructure following the attack.
Crypto.com later announced that the platform has enhanced the security measures in all the accounts and asked users to reset their 2FA(factor authentication).
In addition, they were asked to log back into the platform to regain access to their accounts.
This update will be gradually rolled out to users, according to the crypto platform. Withdrawals are now resumed, allowing users to send funds out of the exchange.
Users are frustrated because, despite resuming withdrawals after 14 hours of downtime, some are still having login issues. A detailed report outlining the actual issue from Crypto.com is expected.
Crypto.com is going through a lot of complications lately with the hack event being a nail on the coffin. In the first week of this year, U.K’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) identified two ads from Crypto.com as misleading and irresponsible and banned their promotions. The ads were deemed as false information and an attempt to lure in customers.
The year 2021 was infested with multiple hacks that cost exchanges and users billions of dollars. 2022 seems to be following the same path as a few days back only crypto exchange LCX announced that one unauthorized crypto wallet breached its system and stole $7.94M worth of digital assets. LCX didn’t reveal any plan to return or compensate the lost tokens yet.
