Eterbase, a Slovak cryptocurrency exchange, has become the latest victim of hackers as $5.4 million in digital currencies were stolen earlier this week.
Informing the traders, the exchange detailed that six of its hot wallets were breached, and funds in Bitcoin , Etheruem, Ripple, Algorand, Tezos, and Tron were siphoned.
“Law enforcement authorities have been informed and we will assist as much as we can in the ongoing investigations,” the exchange said in a statement.
Eterbase has assured the traders that it has enough capital to meet all of its obligations towards them, meaning it can repay the victims from its own pocket. It highlighted that it will continue operations after the ongoing security audit is complete.
“After the security audit of renowned global companies, our operations will continue,” the exchange added. “We will announce the date of the re-opening of the ETERBASE Exchange platform as soon as possible.”
Funds on the Move
Meanwhile, hackers are moving the stolen proceeds to various other exchanges and also converting them into other assets. Some of the stolen Ethers were converted to USD-pegged Stablecoin Tether, moved to decentralized exchange Uniswap and Compound, and even to the centralized exchange Binance.
@UPPSentinel some snapshots of the simple use of our tracing tools for Eterbase incidents. ChainLink Token, Synthetix Network Token, ETH token pic.twitter.com/b3XO4gkxDM
— Nobel Tan (@nobel_tan) September 8, 2020
Though it might be difficult to flag the ill-gotten assets on the decentralized platforms, the attacked exchange approached centralized exchanges to block these deposits from being liquidated.
Eterbase is a small cryptocurrency exchange when compared to other major industry players. Before the hack, the exchange only handled $3 million worth daily trades, according to CoinGecko.
However, big or small, many crypto exchanges have reported security breaches in the past, many of which led to the stealing of hundreds of millions. The most notable one was the breach of Mt. Gox that ultimately resulted in the closure of the exchange, while Japanese exchange Coincheck had to struggle a lot following a $535 million hack.
Binance, one of the leading crypto exchanges, was also hacked last year, resulting in the theft of $40 million in Bitcoin.
