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Cryptopia Hacked! Exchange Halts Trading Services to Prevent Further Theft
Cryptopia, one of the major crypto exchanges in New Zealand, has announced the temporary shutdown of its services following a security breach of its server. The announcement which was made by Cryptopia today on Twitter revealed that a hack attempt was made on exchange’s server yesterday, which resulted in the loss of some of it’s ... Read more
Author by
Lele Jima
Cryptopia, one of the major crypto exchanges in New Zealand, has announced the temporary shutdown of its services following a security breach of its server.
The announcement which was made by Cryptopia today on Twitter revealed that a hack attempt was made on exchange’s server yesterday, which resulted in the loss of some of it’s crypto-assets.
Immediately, the Cryptopia’s team learned about the incident, a stern measure was taken to prevent any further attack of the server, and an immediate shift to maintenance was seen as the appropriate move while staff “assessed damages.”
“Yesterday, 14 January 2019, the cryptopia exchange suffered a security breach which resulted in significant losses. Once identified by staff, the exchange was put into maintenance while we accessed the damage,” Part of the announcement reads.
At the time of writing, the exchange did not specify the number of losses it incurred during the hack. However, it appeared that a large Ethereum transaction occurred on Saturday where about 19,330 Ether (worth nearly $2.45million) was transferred from Cryptopia’s hot wallet to an unidentified wallet.
Similarly, a tweet made by whale alert on Saturday stated that about 48 million Centrality (CENNZ) tokens ($1.18 million) were withdrawn at about the same time.
48,029,306 #CENNZ (1,176,596 USD) transferred from #Cryptopia to Unknown wallet
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) January 13, 2019
Aside from the two cryptos stated, it is unclear at this point whether other digital currencies on the exchange were also affected by the hack.
Security Operatives to Investigate the Hack
The exchange also said in the tweet that it had informed relevant authorities in the country, including the New Zealand police and the High-Tech Crimes Unit force to look into the matter.
Cryptopia made it clear that only when the investigation is complete before it will revisit the issue of opening the website for transactions to be carried out again on the site.
The crypto trading platform apologized for the delay in communicating the recent happenings to users and promises to keep investors updated on every action subsequently taken to restore normalcy to the platform.
Lele Jima is a writer by heart and a crypto enthusiast. He has been a writer for over two years. So far, he has written on topics that cut across various industries ranging from fintech to ICT. He hopes his words bring the desired change we crave for, which is to make the world a better place. His pen is his might, and the sky, his starting point.
