Cryptocurrency exchange, CoinEx, has ceased withdrawals temporarily in response to a suspected cyber-attack which could have resulted in a loss of approximately $27 million, as reported by Decrypt.

What Happened: On Tuesday, multiple cybersecurity firms noticed unusual activities on the platform. CoinEx confirmed that several hot wallet addresses, which are used for storing the exchange’s assets, experienced “anomalous withdrawals”. The potentially stolen assets include Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), Tron (TRON), and Polygon (MATIC).

While the final loss amount is still being evaluated, CoinEx has reassured its users that the stolen funds represent only “a very small portion of CoinEx's total asset[s]”. The company has disabled all deposits and withdrawals for the time being as it investigates the situation.

In response to the breach, CoinEx has promised its users that their assets are safe and unaffected. The company has also pledged to provide “100% compensation for any loss due to this breach.”

Since acknowledging the breach, CoinEx has released several lists of suspicious wallet addresses connected to the hack. The affected tokens include the initially identified three and others such as Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC), Arbitrum (ARB), Solana (SOL).

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Why It Matters: Established in 2017, CoinEx has been a prominent player in the cryptocurrency exchange industry, particularly after its emphasis on Bitcoin Cash (BCH) following the cryptocurrency’s first hard fork.

In 2020, the company broadened its services to include futures trading, leveraged trading, options trading, and access to over 100 token projects. Despite claiming last month that it “has never suffered any security breach thanks to its world-class security infrastructure”, the exchange has now been hit by a substantial cyber attack.

Earlier this year, the beleaguered cryptocurrency exchange FTX reported a loss of $415 million due to cyber theft.

However, TRM Labs reported a 70% drop in crypto attacks in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same period in the previous year. Despite these security improvements, the CoinEx incident shows that crypto exchanges continue to be a target for hackers.

Photo by Bits And Splits on Shutterstock

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