Cryptocurrency exchange HTX (formerly Huobi) has had one of its hot wallets hacked to the tune of $8 million. The news has been confirmed by Justin Sun, who claims that this does not affect HTX’s business in any way, and represents only a meager portion of its revenue. However, the reasons for the breach are unknown.
HTX suffers $8 million hack
Cryptocurrency exchange HTX, formerly named Huobi, has suffered the theft of 5,000 Ethers, or $7.9 million, from one of its hot wallets. First revealed by Cyvers Alerts, which reported “suspicious transactions”, the news was confirmed by Justin Sun, the company’s advisor:
HTX @HTX_Global has suffered a loss of 5,000 Eth ($8 million USD) due to a hacker attack. HTX has fully covered the losses incurred from the attack and has successfully resolved all related issues. All user assets are SAFU and the platform is operating completely normally.
– H.E. Justin Sun 孙宇晨 (@justinsuntron) September 25, 2023
Justin Sun was keen to put the importance of this attack into perspective, with the $7.9 million stolen representing only “the equivalent of 2 weeks’ revenue for the platform”, according to him. He also stated that the attack had no impact on the platform, whose withdrawal and deposit functions have not been shut down.
“We detected the hack immediately after yesterday’s incident and took swift action to prevent any loss, so all funds are safe and trading has continued as usual. We quickly dealt with and resolved all issues, restoring the platform to its normal state without delay. “
At the time of writing, the attacker has transferred some of the ETH from his main wallet (0xdb1D74467c9042517A354304256E0d658D8AEC83) used to move funds from HTX to a second wallet (0x799982b75Ba538F211871cBa50Fa1A42ADa9ab5E). No transaction has been carried out since.
Illustration of Ether transfers between HTX, the main wallet and the hacker’s second wallet
Via a message transmitted on-chain, HTX informed the attacker that it had succeeded in identifying his identity. As a result, the exchange offered to return the funds, authorizing the attacker to keep 5% in return.
If the hacker does not agree to give in to HTX’s demand within 7 days, the cryptocurrency exchange will take legal action, according to the message transmitted on-chain.
