South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Upbit today announced that hackers managed to steal $49 million in Ethereum.
The crypto-coins were transferred from the Upbeat Ethereum Hot Wallet to an unknown wallet on November 27, announced Lee Seok-woo, CEO of Doo-myeon, which operates Upbit.
The hackers, Seok-woo revealed in a notice published on the Upbit website, transferred 342,000 ETH (Ethereum), which is equal to roughly $49 million.
“At 1:06 PM on November 27, 2019, 342,000 ETH (approximately 58 billion won) were transferred from the Upbeat Ethereum Hot Wallet to an unknown wallet,” a translation of the notice reads.
Upbit also announced that it would cover for the amount that was transferred to unknown wallets, and that it would keep users posted on how the operation advances.
In the meantime, to ensure that the incident is contained, the cryptocurrency exchange transferred the existing virtual coins from its hot wallet to a cold wallet.
Hardware-based, cold wallets are considered more secure than the software-based hot wallets because they are usually on devices that cannot be accessed from the Internet.
The exchange has suspended cryptocurrency operations for now, and says that users should expect their funds to be unreachable for the next two weeks. Additional information on this will be provided at a future date.
“Ethereum is the only trade out of the bulk transactions, and the rest of the bulk trades have moved all cryptocurrencies in Hot Wallet to Cold Wallet,” Seok-woo also said.
The exchange also published the address for the unknown wallet where the crypto-coins have been transferred to and advises users to avoid interacting with that wallet.
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