AscendEX Hacked: The Hot Wallet is Compromised and the Hacker Got Away With ~$80 Million

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AscendEXโ€™s internal security audit Report at around 22:00 UTC on Dec  11, 2021, identified that a number of ERC-20, BSC, and Polygon tokens were transferred out of the exchangeโ€™s hot wallets. These assets constituted a relatively small percentage of total exchange holdings.  AscendEX cold wallets are unaffected by this incident. 

Their security teams are conducting a thorough review of the incident and will keep users updated once all facts have been confirmed.  Their commitment to users remains the number one priority and if any userโ€™s funds are affected by the incident, they will be covered completely by AscendEX.

Ascendex Hacked
AscendEX Hacked

To ensure the security of usersโ€™ assets, they will conduct a thorough security review. They have temporarily disabled deposits and withdrawals as a precautionary measure. They will restore the service gradually after ensuring a safe state. With transparency being one of their platformโ€™s core values, they will continue providing periodic updates to their community via their help center and social media channels.

The estimated loss of AscendEX_Global is $77.7M in total ($60M on ethereum, $9.2M on BinanceChain, and $8.5M on 0xPolygon). Here is the list of the transferred-out assets and their amounts on ethereum.

Ascendex Ethereum Network Losses: Source Peckshield
AscendEX Ethereum Network Losses: Source Peckshield
Binance Lost Funds
Binance Lost Funds
0X Polygon Lost Funds
0x Polygon Lost Funds

As of writing this the hacker holds almost all the funds in this address and is slowly transferring them out so it gets hard to track. As we can see in the image below, the hacker is trying to distribute the entire funds into smaller amounts and different addresses.

Funds Distribution
Funds Distribution
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Chaahat Girdhar
Chaahat Girdhar

I'm Chaahat Girdhar, a journalist by profession who's turning her dreams into vision and vision into reality. I'm curious and have an appetite for gaining new knowledge. So I'm looking forward to learning things in the better way possible.

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