Key Takeaways
- On-chain data shows that 16,350 ETH, valued at over $57 million, was moved in a recent attempt to funnel the stolen assets.
- As per Peckshield, over $54 million was sent to address “0x58d,”
The hacker behind the $230 million WazirX exploit has transferred $57 million worth of the stolen funds to two new cryptocurrency addresses. On-chain data shows that 16,350 Ether (ETH), valued at over $57 million, was moved in a recent attempt to funnel the stolen assets. Blockchain security firm PeckShield reported that over $54 million was sent to the address “0x58d” on July 22.
To aid in tracking the stolen assets, WazirX has introduced two bounty programs aimed at on-chain investigators.
The first program, the “track and freeze bounty,” offers up to $10,000 worth of Tether (USDT) for actionable intelligence that leads to the freezing of the stolen funds. The second program, the “white hat recovery bounty,” rewards ethical hackers with up to 10% of the recovered amount. The upper limit for this bounty has been doubled to $23 million following community feedback.
WazirX stated that it offers a reward equivalent to 10 per cent of the recovered amount, subject to successful recovery and verification. 54 white hat hackers have registered for the WazirX recovery program, at the time of writing.
Following the breach, the hacker had converted nearly $150 million of altcoins to Ether, a move likely done to avoid getting funds frozen or blacklisted. Ether Swap helps the hacker secure their funds before any preventative measures are taken by authorities or the issuers of centralized tokens .
As per blockchain analytics firm Spot On, the mass conversion of funds to Ether across July 18-19 included $90.2 million worth of Shiba Inu , $10.2 million in Polygon and $7.5 million in Pepe.
The security breach occurred on July 18, targeting the multisig wallet and leading to the theft of $234.9 million. In response, WazirX halted all withdrawals and informed users they had contacted the police for investigation. The Indian crypto exchange stated that it had reached out to the Indian police, the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) India, CERT-In, and more than 500 other exchanges in order to respond to the hack.
Reports indicate that North Korean hackers may have been behind the WazirX exploit, leading to over $200 million in losses. Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic noted that the attack has the hallmarks of North Korean threat actors, with attackers swapping the crypto assets for Ether using various decentralized services.
As per blockchain analytics firm, Lookonchain data, the stolen assets include more than $100 million in Shiba Inu (SHIB), $52 million in Ether (ETH), $11 million in Matic (MATIC), and $6 million in Pepe (PEPE). The hacker’s ongoing efforts to liquidate these assets pose significant concerns.
As per reports, the crypto sector has suffered 785 reported hacks and exploits during the past 13 years. Approximately $19 billion worth of digital assets were stolen in the 13 years since June 19, 2011, when the first known crypto hack was reported.
The latest development comes days after Liquidity protocol, Rho Markets was exploited on July 19 leading to a loss of $7.6 million worth of stablecoins
