Cryptopia Hack Attack Not Over Yet

The cryptocurrency exchange Cryptopia, based out of New Zealand, reported a hack attack two weeks ago. However, reports from the Blockchain based infrastructure firm Elementus state that the cryptocurrency exchange is still compromised by the hackers.

The First Attack

On January 15, Cryptopia suspended all services after it detected a major cyber attack that led to significant losses. The crypto exchange stated that the attack had occurred on January 14.

The exchange initially issued a notice that it was suspending services due to unscheduled maintenance work. It also issued a number of updates on this so-called maintenance before it finally revealed that the exchange had been attacked by hackers.

Then, on January 20, Cryptopia reported that up to $16 million in Ethereum (ETH) as well as ERC20 had been stolen. According to the blog post by Elementus, data taken from Ethereum’s public Blockchain showed that funds were siphoned off from the two core wallets of Cryptopia starting from January 13. One wallet held the ETH tokens and the other held various other tokens.

The Attack Continues

In its blog post released today, Elementus stated that the attack was continuing and that the hackers had already leeched away 1,675 ETH, amounting to about $174,875, from 17,000 different Cryptopia wallets. All the funds stolen accumulated at one address, before being transferred to another one. The blog also said that of the 17,000 wallets impacted, 5,000 of them were the ones that had been emptied out in the first attack. Those 5,000 wallets were refilled after the first attack, so this was the second attack they faced.

According to Elementus, it was clear that it was the same hackers who were responsible for the second attack too, since the funds were transferred to the same addresses as before.

These addresses have been flagged off by Etherscan for being involved in the hack attack. Etherscan also warned people to be careful when interacting with these addresses.

No Control Over Its Own Wallets

Elementus concluded its report by saying that Cryptopia still did not have any control over its own wallets, and that they were being controlled by the attackers.

Some in the crypto community feel that this is not a second attack. Rather it is the same attack that has continued. According to one Tweet, the hacker probably stole Cryptopia’s ETH private key and then deleted the exchange’s copy.