Cryptocurrency trading platform Bitmart suffered hacking attempt were hackers drained $196 million of crypto.

According to Bitmart exchange two hot wallets were opened by a stolen private key that lead to the security breach. Hot wallets are connected to internet and allows users to have easily access to their coins or spend crypto. During hacking, hot wallets were on Ethereum ETH and the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) were used by hackers to steal these assets. It constitutes of only a “small percentage” of the assets on the exchange. On Ethereum blockchain $100 million worth of various cryptocurrencies were lost and remaining was lost on BSC. Other assets wallets were secure and unharmed.

The first publicizing report revealed on December 5, was from blockchain security and data analytics firm Peckshield. According to Peckshield decentralized exchange aggregator known as “1inch” were used by hackers to swap stolen tokens for ether. From that side over there to hide their identities, hackers deposited ether funds to privacy mixer Tornado Cash that makes the money harder to trace.

BitMart has completed did initial security check and worked on identifying affected assets. Also added that a thorough security review of the events will be conducted. The exchange has suspended withdrawals on its platform for now. The exchange is planing to compensate users out of its own pocket,” BitMart CEO Sheldon Xia said.

Other such events:

Crypto lender Celsius Network last week confirmed losing $120 million hack of the decentralized finance platform BadgerDAO. In October administrator’s keys was leaked leading to a $139 million hack of BXH Exchange. In August from the cryptocurrency platform Poly Network more than $600 million worth of tokens were stolen by a hacker.

Indrani Bose

CBW - External Analyst

INDIA