Key takeaways:
- CZ volunteered the assistance of Binance’s Security team in examining the attack hours after the crypto exchange HTX announced a hack that cost it $8 million.
- To lessen the harm, HTX proactively offered 5% of the drained cash as a “white-hat bonus,” which amounted to about $400,000.
Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, CEO of Binance, volunteered the assistance of the exchange’s security team in examining the attack hours after the cryptocurrency exchange HTX (rebranded from Huobi) announced a hack that cost it $8 million.
As hackers try to cover their tracks by utilizing mixers or converting the loot to privacy tokens, quick action is essential to finding and recovering stolen coins. Cyvers, a blockchain analytics company, discovered a hack on September 24 that resulted in the loss of 5,000 Ether from one of HTX’s hot wallets.
To lessen the harm, HTX proactively offered 5% of the drained cash as a “white-hat bonus,” which amounted to about $400,000. Nevertheless, the hacker has been given seven days to abide by the request. HTX delivered the offer in Mandarin Chinese.
On a brighter note, CZ made fun of the newly rebranded HTX’s similarity to Sam Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency exchange, FTX.
In response to a tweet from Justin Sun, the creator of Tron and consultant to HTX, CZ hired Binance’s security team to assist in locating the missing cash. Sun further stated that HTX will compensate for all losses for users. He stated:
“$8 million represents a relatively small sum in comparison to the $3 billion worth of assets held by our users. It also amounts to just two weeks’ revenue for the HTX platform.”
To stop such losses, HTX also put in place real-time monitoring tools. Even though Sun disputes having a significant stake in HTX, he promised to host multiple live broadcasts to talk about exchange security in English and Chinese.
Just one day before the HTX attack, the decentralized peer-to-peer network Mixin Network suffered a loss of nearly $200 million due to a hack that compromised a third-party cloud service provider’s database.
0xScope, a Web3 SaaS analytics company, conducted an independent investigation to learn more about the hacker’s prior interactions with Mixin Network. A hacker-associated address received 5 ETH from Mixin in 2022 and was later put into Binance.
On Mixin Network, deposits and withdrawals will resume “once the vulnerabilities are confirmed and fixed.” The strategies for restoring users’ lost valuables weren’t immediately made public.
