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Hackers Steal Millions from Cryptocurrency Exchange Bitrue

Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange Bitrue revealed on Thursday that hackers managed to access and move the funds of tens of its customers.

Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange Bitrue revealed on Thursday that hackers managed to access and move the funds of tens of its customers.

In a statement posted on Twitter, the company said the attackers exploited a vulnerability in its Risk Control team’s second review process, allowing them to access the funds of roughly 90 users.

According to Bitrue, the hackers managed to move 9.3 million XRP (worth roughly $4.5 million) and 2.5 million ADA (worth roughly $230,000) to other exchanges. The company has been working with those exchanges, including Huobi, Bittrex, ChangeNOW and EXMO, to freeze and recover the stolen cryptocurrency.

The incident has been reported to authorities in Singapore in hopes of getting assistance in tracking down the attackers and recovering the stolen funds. The company has also asked individuals who have information about the breach to contact it via email or Twitter.

The exchange claims the funds of impacted individuals are insured and it has promised that everyone will get their money back.

Bitrue said it quickly detected the malicious activity and temporarily suspended its platform, but it should not take too long for login and trading services to be restored.

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“Right now we are conducting an emergency inspection of the exchange and hope to be live again as soon as possible with log in & trading functionality. Withdrawals will be offline for a slightly longer period while we continue investigating the situation,” the exchange said.

Earlier this year, Bitrue reported that someone had attempted to withdraw 13,000 ETC (Ethereum Classic) from its platform, but the attack was blocked by its systems.

Many cryptocurrency exchanges were targeted by hackers in the past few years and attackers in many cases managed to steal millions and even tens of millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency. The list of impacted exchanges includes Binance, Coinrail, Zaif, Coincheck, Bithumb, Bter, Bitfinex, and CAVIRTEX.

Related: Hackers Breach Cryptocurrency Platform Atlas Quantum

Related: North Korean Hackers Prep Attacks Against Cryptocurrency Exchanges

Written By

Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is senior managing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher before starting a career in journalism in 2011. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.

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