Yesterday, the developers of the multi-chain wallet took to Twitter to announce that they had received reports of account compromises from a small number of users.
Millions of dollars in cryptocurrency were stolen from Atomic Wallet customers. On Saturday, the project developers admitted that their users’ data had been compromised.
Atomic Wallet is a cryptocurrency wallet that works on both mobile and desktop. Multiple platforms including Windows, Android, iOS, macOS, as well as Linux, support the wallet.
Atomic Wallet Hack: How Much Was Lost?
On June 3, the project developers announced the hack via Twitter in the following terms:
“We have received reports of wallets being compromised. We are doing all we can to investigate and analyse the situation. As we have more information, we will share it accordingly.”
Over a hundred addresses were compromised and Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tron, BSC, Cardano, Ripple, Polkadot, Cosmos, Algorand, Avalanche, Litecoin and Dogecoin assets were taken.
Early indications point to around $35 million being lost. The largest individual loss amounts to 7.95 million USDT. According to network detective ZachXBT, the five biggest losses add up to $17 million.
Early Warning Signs
Since users’ private keys are encrypted and stored locally on their devices, Atomic Wallet believes this makes their product more secure. However, the latest incident proves otherwise.
In fact, the wallet’s vulnerability was evident as early as February 2021. That year, auditing firm Least Authority issued red flags, saying that Atomic Wallet is “insufficiently secure to protect users’ private data and assets.”
User @Christomos03 tweeted the following:
“God damn, all of my hard-working money has been vanished from atomic wallet only!!!! This is your responsibility to secure the funds. What will happen to our funds? please do not copy-paste anything here! just give all clear answer, Many users are faced with this today!!”
Twitter users also alleged that funds from the Atomic Wallet app had been previously stolen. Reacting to the post, Ignas DeFi Research wrote the following:
“Atomic wallet, despite being around for years, still gets hacked. I’m trying out several software wallets, but for peace of mind, multisig wins for long-term storage. Unfortunately, it’s not the most user-friendly way, but you’ll sleep better at night.”
Liquidity Issues and Criticism
Atomic Wallet has recently come under fire for offering the $BEN token, the meme coin established by “BitBoy” Ben Armstrong, and for the liquidity problems of its native token, Atomic Wallet Coin (AWC), which fell 8% today.
Atomic Wallet is currently surveying victims, asking them about their operating system, software download location, last actions before the cryptocurrency theft, and backup phrase storage location.
As of June 4, Atomic Wallet has updated information via Twitter:
“At the moment less than 1% of our monthly active users have been affected/reported. The last drained transaction was confirmed over 40h ago. Security investigation is ongoing. We report victim addresses to major exchanges & Blockchain analytics to trace and block the stolen funds.”
In order to identify potential attack vectors, the wallet service provider said it is collaborating with leading security firms. The research team has not been able to confirm anything so far.
By Audy Castaneda
