Coinrail, a cryptocurrency exchange based in South Korea, announced they were hacked on Saturday. Korea’s Yonhap estimated that a total of $37.2 million of coins went missing.
However, they did not call it a hack, probably not to panic their clients. They termed it a ‘cyber-intrusion.’ On the plus side, the exchange was alerted before too much damage was done.
The exchange said it secured and moved 70 percent of its cryptocurrency assets in cold storage (offline) wallets, which can transfer coins into a platform that is not connected to the Internet.
In a series of tweets, the exchange said,
There has been a cyber intrusion in our system. We’re confirming it and some coins (Pundi X, NPXS) are confirmed. This is MDL to prevent damage to coins and may cause some coins to be unable to be transferred to the network. We will proceed as fast as possible to avoid damage to you.
This has prompted the suspension of trading on the exchange and investigations of the source of the hack have ensued. The exchange went on to say that it’s working with the affected ICO companies to freeze the stolen tokens.
This news has sent prices of cryptocurrencies into a tailspin, wiping out an estimated $40 billion in virtual wealth. As well as bitcoin, prices for other commonly traded digital currencies like Ethereum also plunged.
Indeed, the continuous growth in the cryptocurrency industry continues to breed more hackers and cybercriminals. Crypto exchanges, wallet providers, and investors have to take extra care in securing their digital asset.
The Coinrail heist will further raise concerns about the lack of regulation in the industry and its the latest in a series of heists at cryptocurrency exchanges, which cybersecurity analysts say is a target for cybercriminals whose primary aim is to amass wealth in the easiest ways possible.
The Coinrail attack comes just months after Japan’s Coincheck cryptocurrency exchange lost $400m worth of digital currency and South Korea’s Youbit exchange was forced to file for bankruptcy and close after two cyber-attacks, while in 2014 MTGox filed for bankruptcy after losing bitcoins worth around $500m. You may even remember that Golix’s user accounts were once compromised.
On the international arena, these attacks have sent down chills to policy makers and authority’s spines. Late last month Zimbabwe even went on to ban the trading cryptocurrencies to protect people from suffering financial loses.
By the way, Techzim Insights’ has done a State of Blockchain Technology in Zimbabwe Report. To buy the report just Ecocash the fee of $4.99 to the Techzim Merchant Account 83688 then email the confirmation of payment to admin@techzim.co.zw and we will email it to you. You can email if you want to use other modes of payment and we will assist.
15 comments
title says billion, article says million… which one is it?
$37 million was lost directly , and then the aftermath of the incident has led to losses of 40 billion as prices of other coins have plunged. So it’s a bit of both.
And some political party wants an entire country administration to be run on the back of Block Chain technology …. and even guts enough to put that in a manifesto.
“Bitcoin fell because people sold and not enough people were willing to buy, not because of a small hack.” In an effort to pin Bitcoin’s price drop on anything other than sellers overpowering buyers, mainstream and cryptocurrency-focused media have been eager to blame Coinrail — an irrelevant and incredibly minor cryptocurrency exchange in South Korea. However, the hack of Coinrail is not to blame for the flash crash. Market manipulators and panic sellers are.
Why were there suddenly fewer people willing to buy?
If someone could hack and suck out $37 million it means the product is not a secure investment. People don’t buy unsecure investments.
If crypto currencies become successful, guess who will loose real power in the world and the superpower status.
Now is it hard to see who publicly support cryptos and secretly happy to crush it?
Crypto lovers are fighting a secret cyberwar against the best of the best, only time will tell
Then I start to wonder if smaller cyptos such as Golix could survive such a hack. Luckily the hackers look for bigger fish.
Golix is an exchange not a crypto
lol, MacdChip you now sound like a conspiracy theorist. Are you saying governments are behind this? Be that as it may the fact still remains that they are vulnerable and as an investor I’d be quick to remove my funds before any such intrusions take place.
Is our government happy to crypto working in Zim? What will be Mangudya’s or RBZ’s job if decentralised monies become our everyday life?
How would US dominate the world when it suddenly loose the power of its money?
NSA is not just going to sit on its hands and let this decentralised money takw away the pride of America. Crypto kids needs to know who is the boss!!
I like how you call it virtual wealth. Just like my virtual girlfriend from GTA.
Oh and McDonald can relax, crypto-currency wont replace real, non-virtual currency anytime soon.
Bt there is a chance that it will right? We need to learn to plan centuries ahead…
How is a hack of a crypto exchange different from that of a fiat currency bank?
The crypto-currency world is against regulation so any talk of regulation is anathema to them. When crypto-currency “investors” lose (due to whatever cause) what recourse do they have? This helps one to assess the cost benefit analysis of going crypto or not. This alone, is a valid reason why a number of governments via their reserve banks, are intervening….but there’re a lot more criminal activities that can be conducted using crypto-currencies like money laundering, illegal “externalisation” etc I wonder how crypto-currencies will become “secure assets”, never mind the complex algorithms used e.g. in mining bitcoins etc in light of the incessant and almost ubiquitous hacks…