Exchange hacks are age-long thorns in the game of crypto, and they appear unending. A Russia-based cryptocurrency exchange, LiveCoin announced this week that it has been hacked and has lost control over its services.
Per a Business Insider report on the incident, some cybercriminals manipulated the exchange’s order books and changed the rates to 10-15 times their actual values. Livecoin’s daily trading volume is roughly $16 million, meaning that the amount lost could be substantial.
In efforts to take due precautions, the exchange had warned its customers to stop using the services; else, they might fall victim to the fraud and lose their funds to the hackers.
LiveCoin Exchange Hacked
According to the company’s message on its official site, the attack seems to have occurred on the night between December 23rd and 24th.
The message describes the hack as a “carefully planned attack.” The exchange assumes that it could have been prepared over the last few months.
The exchange explained in details what had happened due to the hack in the message, which reads;
“We lost control of all of our servers, backend, and nodes. Thus, we were not able to stop our service on time. Our news channels were compromised as well.”
The report also revealed the new rates the hackers are now working with, saying;
“The hackers tweaked the exchange rate for Bitcoin from the regular $23,000/BTC to more than $450,000/BTC, Ether grew from $600/ETH to $15,000, and Ripple price increased from $0.27/XRP to more than $17/XRP.”
The total amount lost to the security breach is yet to be determined.
Just a few months ago, a Singapore-headquartered cryptocurrency exchange, KuCoin, has reportedly suffered a security breach. The attack resulted in a massive transfer of funds from the exchange’s custody to cybercriminals’ possession.
