Indian Crypto Exchange Halts Withdrawals After Losing Half Its Reserves in Security Breach

An anonymous reader shares a report: Indian crypto exchange WazirX on Thursday confirmed it had suffered a security breach after about $230 million in assets were "suspiciously transferred" out of the platform earlier in the day. The Mumbai-based firm said one of its multisig wallets had suffered a security breach, and it was temporarily pausing all withdrawals from the platform.

Lookchain, a third-party blockchain explorer, reported that more than 200 cryptocurrencies, including 5.43 billion SHIB tokens, over 15,200 Ethereum tokens, 20.5 million Matic tokens, 640 billion Pepe tokens, 5.79 million USDT, and 135 million Gala tokens were "stolen" from the platform. WazirX reported holdings of about $500 million in its June proof-of-reserves disclosure.

The grand master plan of crypto

[Anonymous Coward]

The plan for all cryptocurrencies isn't what they want to make you think it is. It's more sinister than the egalitarian image the crypto boys portray for it.

After the 2008 financial meltdown, cryptocurrencies were born out of it, declared to be the means by which people could be freed from banks/governments, and promised to avoid any such future meltdowns from happening ever again.

But the crypto boys watched closely the result of that meltdown, and formulated their plan: create a new form of currency, and

Re:

[geekmux]

So are you into scatplay or not?

I know craptocoin can often turn into a shit deal, but you didn’t have to go all Bowel Godwin on his ass.

Good thing those deposits were insured!

[drinkypoo]

Er, wait...

Re: Good thing those deposits were insured!

[dknj]

be yOuR oWn BaNk

More like...

[nocoiner]

be yOuR oWn BaNk

More like "be yOuR o\/\/n BrE4Ch"

“Stolen”

[bubblyceiling]

Right .. they were “stolen”. Of course there was no fraud or misrepresentations of assets or anything like that. They just “disappeared”

Re:“Stolen”

[geekmux]

Right .. they were “stolen”. Of course there was no fraud or misrepresentations of assets or anything like that. They just “disappeared”

200 various crapcoins the world barely knows about? The biggest fraud here, is assuming that shit holds enough value to be called theft.

"Security breach" you say....

[gweihir]

I think you do not know what that means. Maybe "Rug-Pull" would be a better term?

I guess...

[Chris Mattern]

...they didn't do the needful.

Finance of the future

[qbast]

Crypto shit is going just great. The question is not 'will I lose?' but 'when'

$230 million?

[rsilvergun]

Honestly a loss of that size is hardly even news in the crypto community. You can go on web3isgoinggreat.com Right now and they've got a couple of them larger than that if you just scroll down a bit. So far they've tracked 74 billion dollars in losses.

Honestly I'm starting to think these multimillion-dollar thefts are part of the money laundering schemes going on. There's just too many of them and the dollar amounts are too high. Seriously there's a couple of these in this dollar range every single week for God's sakes.

Re:$230 million?

[Petersko]

I lost a pair of keys on a ring that I've had hanging on the wall for several years. Don't know what they're for... but now I can't find them.

I value them at $500M. So now I've incurred half a billion in losses.

I'm devastated.

Re:

[froggyjojodaddy]

You should write that off when you do your taxes. I hope you can recover from this massive financial loss.

And yet..

[Virtucon]

We have the constant push to outsource to India & China. Do you still think your data is in good hands?

Re:

[geekmux]

We have the constant push to outsource to India & China. Do you still think your data is in good hands?

Would you prefer the US Government hold it? Tell me why. I’ll get my popcorn.

Re: And yet..

[aSplash0fDerp]

In context,yes. Having data jurisdictions as an option for the financial, medical and academic institutions simplifies many of the fundamental aspects of digital data networks. It spans well beyond that with data jurisdictions as an option.

If you have the time, this video has one of the better summaries of why China thrived, while India did not since the turn of the century. I skipped to the Attracting FDI section, which plausibly states that foreign companies brought knowledge and operational enhancemen

Re:

[Malay2bowman]

Because having it in the hands of people paid shit wages and who have families to clothe, feed, and house and who live in countries where the plebs are literally disposable without a second thought (because among other things, both countries have a billion + population so life is cheap) is much better or safer, correct? So either the Russians will eventually aquire your data, or the US spooks might someday decide to take a peek at your data. Pick your poison.

Re:

[noshellswill]

USA government is a constitutional democrat republic; culturally a Christian meritocracy ... minus the original sin of slavery. Corrupt as some agencies may by, the ultimate power and agency in America rests at the ballot box. The administrative state is subject to power and liberty of the yeomanry. China is a communist tyranny with thousands of years of autocratic rule and a Taoist culture that structures dependency and obedience. There is NO comparison, except in the eyes of

Re:

[Malay2bowman]

Both countries have employers who have families in rinky dink shit shack villages where the possibility of going hungry is a president threat (possibly much more of a problem in India) Now why wouldn't they skim some dough from the Yanks/other well off countries so their kids won't starve to death?

Re:

[Malay2bowman]

"president threat" PERSISTENT threat.

again and again and again

[Goodsuburbanite]

I have been skeptical of crypto ever since I lost my little share of Bitcoin when Mtgox folded. I mined it myself. Only $70 worth at the time, but that would be worth a few grand now.

Remember when

[Malay2bowman]

That dude died with the only copy of the password in his head locking up millions upon millions of dollars worth of $hitcoin from their owners? Play with shady stuff, expect to get burned.

HSM for cryptocurrency?

[ctilsie242]

In the world outside cryptocurrency, one stores private keys which are high value in a HSM, and the HSM can do things like require multiple users to do a task and provide logging. For example, more than a decade ago, a Linux vendor had someone compromise a user account and sign a SSH package. It sucked, but the vendor was able to figure out what was signed, lock that user account, and revoke that specific package. Had that key been stored just sitting on a drive, it would be a completely different story.