The Singapore-headquartered digital currency exchange KuCoin has suffered a security breach on September 25 and has reportedly lost around $150 million worth of funds in cryptocurrencies which were taken out from its hot wallets. The hot wallets that were compromised in the security breach contained Bitcoin, ERC20, and some other tokens according to the crypto exchange KuCoin who reported this event as the security incident in an official announcement.
Only Hot Wallets were compromised, not Cold Wallets
KuCoin was able to find out through its latest internal security audit report that only hot wallets of the exchange were compromised during this security breach and an amount of $150 million in crypto funds was transferred out of them. These wallets also contained some parts of the exchange’s total asset holdings as well. However, the company said that all of its cold wallets and assets present in it are completely secured and unharmed. KuCoin has also assured users to cover their affected funds from its insurance funds.
The CEO of the KuCoin exchange Johnny Lyu has said during a live stream today on Saturday on at 4:30 UTC that the private keys that led hackers to the hot wallets of the exchange were somehow obtained by them. However, he said, the company has developed new hot wallets and transferred asset holdings into it.
KuCoin is now conducting a security review in order to make sure that the assets of users are well secured and protected. During the security review, the service of deposits and withdrawals has been suspended by the company and it will be restored gradually by the company once the security review is completed successfully.
Tron CEO promises to help for tracking down the stolen funds
The founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Tron, Justin Sun has sympathized with all users and the team of KuCoin. He has offered his help to the KuCoin team saying, “@TRONSCAN_ORG will label the hacker’s address so that all exchange partners are made aware.”