WazirX Suspends Withdrawals Following $230 Million Multisig Wallet Breach

WazirX has suffered a major security breach on one of its multisig wallets, resulting in losing $230 million in customer funds.

The crypto exchange disclosed the incident in the early hours of Thursday, July 18, and noted that its team is actively investigating the breach. It noted that it has temporarily suspended withdrawals to safeguard users’ funds.

Blockchain analytics firm, Lookonchain, initially reported the security breach, stating that over $230 million worth of digital assets were transferred from WazirX’s wallet to another wallet address, “0x04b2.” According to the firm, the attacker’s wallet sold 640.27 billion $Pepe tokens, valued at approximately $7.6 million.

Further analysis by Lookonchain unveiled that the hacker had stolen various other virtual assets, including 5.43 trillion $SHIB tokens (worth $102 million), 15,298 $ETH (worth $52.5 million), and 20.5 million $MATIC tokens (worth $11.24 million). The assets taken also encompassed 5.79 million $USDT, 135 million $GALA coins (valued at $3.5 million), and 6.3 million $FTM (worth $3.2 million), plus other memecoins, cryptocurrencies, and GameFi tokens.

Etherscan data indicates that the hacker is actively liquidating the stolen assets through the decentralized exchange UniSwap. However, the attacker has yet to sell their $ETH holdings and is currently holding about $4.2 million worth of $FLOKI coins in their portfolio, leaving room for potential recovery of the stolen assets.

The crypto market has recently witnessed significant losses due to security breaches and exploits on web3 platforms. A recent report by PeckShield Alert highlighted that exploiters siphoned off $176.2 million worth of crypto assets in June 2024 alone. Despite the substantial loss, this figure represents a 54.2% decrease compared to the staggering $574.6 million stolen in May, a promising sign for the industry’s security.

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