Cyber-criminals have compromised a British cryptocurrency exchange, making off with over $3m in Bitcoin.
Cashaa has halted all its crypto-related transactions after cyber-criminals stole more than 336 Bitcoin from their exchange. The company has said that prima facia users have not been impacted by the theft.
In a media brief shared with Cointelegraph, Cashaa’s CEO Kumar Gaurav said: “We are still investigating the damage caused by the incident and suspend all the withdrawals for 24 hours.”
Kumar said that the theft occurred after malicious hackers compromised one of the exchange’s digital wallets. Once access had been gained, the hackers sent the cryptocurrency contained within the wallet to themselves.
Guarav said that he had reason to believe that the cyber-criminals who hit Cashaa are based in East Delhi, India. Acting on this suspicion, the exchange has filed a cyber-crime incident report with the Delhi crime bureau under the cryptocurrency crime category.
A meeting of Cashaa’s board has been called to determine whether the company will bear all the losses associated with the crime.
Cashaa said it believes that to carry out the theft, cyber-criminals installed malware onto a computer used to make exchange transfers like user withdrawals. This malware sent a notification to the cyber-criminals at 1:23pm on July 10 when an employee logged into the account and made two transfers from a Blockchain.com wallet. It was this wallet that was then compromised and illegally relieved of over 336 Bitcoin.
The company is now taking steps to prevent the cyber-criminals who hit Cashaa from selling the stolen cryptocurrency on exchanges. On Twitter, Cashaa posted the Bitcoin address of the hacker in hopes of tracking any movement of the illegally acquired funds.
Guarav said Bitcoin thefts were on the rise because some cryptocurrency exchanges made it easy for cyber-criminals to launder stolen funds.
“As of today, hackers are very confident to hack crypto addresses and move it through exchanges that are facilitating such laundering through their systems,” said Guarav.
“Exchanges like these must be shut down and owners of these exchanges should be charged with money laundering facilitation crime.”