WazirX Suffers $230 Million Cyberattack, Launches Bounty Programs for Recovery
WazirX, a leading cryptocurrency exchange has been hardly hit by the cyberattack that cost the company the loss of digital assets worth $230 Million. As of now, the company has suspended all the INR and Crypto withdrawals.
📢 Update: We're aware that one of our multisig wallets has experienced a security breach. Our team is actively investigating the incident. To ensure the safety of your assets, INR and crypto withdrawals will be temporarily paused. Thank you for your patience and understanding.…
— WazirX: India Ka Bitcoin Exchange (@WazirXIndia) July 18, 2024
It has also filed a police complaint and reported the incident to the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and CERT-In. In order to speed the recovery process recently announced the Bounty Programs. One of the bounty program objectives is to identify, track, and provide actionable intelligence leading to the freezing of the stolen funds. Under this program company will offer rewards of up to $10,000 worth of USDT.
The second bounty program is White Hat Recovery Bounty. Under this program, someone who assists in the recovery of the stolen funds gets 5% of the recovered amount as a reward. Now the company has increased the percentage of the bounty from 5% to 10% which means a total of 23 million. There have been some report that says that North Korean hackers are behind that has yet not been proven. Recently ZachXBT named a user and an investigator on X who wrote in an X post that “All I can say is the WazirX hack has the potential markings of a Lazarus Group attack (yet again)”
6/ This is where my tracing ends as the BTC appears to come from an unknown service making it difficult to trace.
All I can say is the WazirX hack has the potential markings of a Lazarus Group attack (yet again)
Hopefully the WazirX team will be transparent with their… https://t.co/IjzlI76TRQ
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) July 18, 2024
Those who don’t know Lazarus Group is a threat group that has been tied to the North Korean government since as early as 2009. Their name has earlier been associated with the Sony Pictures Hack, and Bangladesh Bank Heist and in recent days they have shifted their focus to cryptocurrency.