Bitrue, the cryptocurrency exchange platform has just been the victim of a theft estimated at $23 million in various cryptocurrencies. Luckily, only the company's hot wallet appears to be affected, which represents less than 5% of Bitrue's total funds.
Bitrue temporarily suspends all withdrawals following the hack
The news has just broken and is once again soaking the ecosystem and more importantly, the customers of the Bitrue platform. In an official statement, the platform has just announced that it identified a vulnerability in one of its hot wallets at 07:18 (UTC) on 14 April 2023, which allowed a hacker to steal 23 million dollars. Initial indications are that ETH, QNT, GALA, SHIB, HOT and MATIC cryptocurrencies were impacted by the theft.
The team also reports that they were able to resolve the issue quickly and prevent further mining of the funds. An investigation is underway to find the the vulnerability, but also to try to recover the funds stolen by the attacker.
On the positive side, the impacted hot storage wallet contained less than 5% of Bitrue's total funds. As the other wallets were not compromised, Bitrue will still conduct a thorough review of its security systems to prevent the worst from happening.
In parallel and in order to conduct further security checks, Bitrue is temporarily suspending all withdrawals and plans to reopen withdrawals on 18 April 2023. In addition, the company stresses that it will compensate all users affected by this incident in full. So, more fear than harm for the majority of people who held digital assets on the exchange platform.
While GDAC was also the victim of a $13 million hack this week, these developments reveal that centralized cryptocurrency exchange platforms are not immune to anything. Nothing beats holding your assets yourself using secure hardware wallets like LEDGER or SafePal.
