TL; DR Breakdown
- Hackers drain $80 million from AscendEx
- Wallets on three blockchains were compromised
- Hackers are now targeting exchanges’ hot wallets
Over the last few months, hackers have been on the prowl in the crypto sector, emptying millions in funds from wallets belonging to exchanges. Although the centralized sector of the market has not been affected too much, the decentralized sector has suffered massively. In another attack on an exchange, AscendEx has announced that its firewalls has been breached causing hackers to drain about $80 million from the exchange.
AscendEx wallets on three blockchains breached
According to the statement by the exchange, the hackers targeted its hot wallets spread across Ethereum, Polygon, and the Binance Smart Chain network. With the exchange noticing the massive withdrawals, it alerted its users about the breach. However, the exchange has mentioned that only the hot wallets were breached with their cold wallets not suffering any breach.
In its statement, the exchange mentioned that users should not panic as any affected wallets will be reimbursed. AscendEx has also started investigations into how the hackers were able to breach its platform and look for a way to make sure it doesn’t occur again.
Hackers are now targeting exchanges’ hot wallets
In the review of the attack by analysis platform, PeckShield, the hackers stole about $60 million of the entire funds from the wallet based on Ethereum. Further considering data by Etherscam, about $8.5 million was stolen from Polygon while the hackers drained $9.2 million from Binance Smart Chain. A breakdown of the coin stolen in the hack showed a higher portion of Shiba Inu, USD coin, and Tether.
However, all the details are still estimated as AscendEx has not concluded its investigations. This amount drained from the hack is very small compared to that of BitMart which occurred last week. After the breach, the crypto exchange reported that the hackers carted away about $200 million from their hot wallets. After BitMart discovered the breach, it put a stop to all activities on the platform which have now been reopened in phases.
