A score of tokens got stolen in the massive hack. The PeckShield analytics firm was the first entity that reported the token withdrawal.
The bitcoin (BTC) exchange, Bitmart, struggled with a massive hack that cost at least $ 200 million, following a security breach in its hot wallets hosted on the Ethereum blockchain and Binance Smart Chain (BSC), respectively.
This information got reported in a statement revealed on its blog, where the company highlighted the identification of a large-scale security breach related to the ETH and BSC wallets.
According to what they said at the time, they were working to identify how hackers disrupted the exchange’s security. The thieves extracted figures of USD 150 million.
The affected ETH and BSC active wallets have a tiny percentage of assets on BitMart; the other wallets are safe and unharmed. BitMart is now leading a comprehensive security review and will release updates once they start achieving progress.
They Reported the Hack as Fake News
Although the company acknowledged the situation, it had previously been revealed by blockchain security and analytics firm PeckShield, via Twitter. They revealed in the social network the withdrawal of at least USD 100 million in tokens and cryptocurrencies in the Ethereum portfolio, and USD 96 million in BSC.
The entity shared the list of transferred assets and their amounts. It accounts for at least twenty tokens, including alternative cryptocurrencies, like Safemoon, BUSD, and Binance Coin (BNB). The funny thing is that many of the coins mined were cryptocurrencies memes, such as Shiba Inu, BabyDoge, or Floki.
Something that drew attention is that the exchange described the notifications of the massive theft as false news a few hours before they confirmed it. This news got clarified by PeckShield, who showed screenshots of the company’s Telegram group, which reflected the rejection position of the now compromised exchange house.
Bitmart claimed In one of their responses that the information about the hack was creating unnecessary tension and that they had repeatedly clarified that they had not breached the exchange’s security system.
Withdrawals are a normal thing that comes from hot wallets, they explained, while they denied in another message that the hack happened and assured that the accounts got secured.
BitMart will Pay with their Funds
The exchange’s CEO, Sheldon Xia, updated the situation early Monday morning. He highlighted that once they completed initial security checks and identified the affected assets, they had noted that there was a security breach originating from a stolen private key that had two of their active wallets compromised.
The CEO also stated that they are now doing “everything possible” to recover the security configurations, as well as their operability: The representative said they need time to make the necessary arrangements during this period. In terms of asset deposit and withdrawal, they remain confident that the functions would begin gradually as soon as possible.
By: Jenson Nuñez
