Cybercriminal Steals $25 Million from Kronos Research amid Increased Crypto Hacks
Summary:
A cybercriminal siphoned off $25 million by accessing unprotected API keys from analytic trading company, Kronos Research. Following the security breach, the company halted its trading activities to investigate, although no losses were reported initially. The stolen funds were redirected to six different cryptocurrency wallet addresses. While trading services remain suspended for now, Kronos Research remains hopeful, stating the incident does not significantly impact their equity and they plan to resume trading soon. Amid frequent crypto heists, investors are urged to thoroughly research potential projects. Blockchain security company, CertiK highlighted Q3 2023 as a notably damaging period for cryptocurrencies, leading to losses exceeding $700 million.
A cybercriminal managed to steal a staggering $25 million from analytic trading company, Kronos Research, after gaining access to their unprotected API keys. This event was revealed by the company on November 19, leading to an immediate halt in trading activities on their platform. Despite the sizeable heist, there were no stated losses at the time of the announcement.
Just four hours after the security infringement took place, Kronos made a public statement to explain that their API keys had been used without permission. They had chosen to pause all trading operations during their ongoing investigation into the incident. The stolen amount was clarified to be a non-significant fraction of the company's total value, and it stated its intention to resume trading activities as early as feasible.
Blockchain analyst ZachXBT provided additional insights into the incident, discovering roughly $25 million in stolen funds redirected into six distinct cryptocurrency wallet addresses. The investigation identified six transactions of varying amounts of Ether (ETH) — from a Kronos Research account to numerous addresses linked to the cybercriminal.
The trading services of Kronos Research are currently suspended indefinitely until the internal investigations can identify the kleptomaniac responsible for the theft of more than 12800 ETH. The company maintains a positive outlook, reiterating that "Potential losses are not a significant portion of our equity and we aim to resume trading as soon as possible."
Efforts to get commentary from Kronos Research on the matter yielded no immediate results.
Amid the increasing frequency of crypto hacks, investors are advised to be more diligent in their research before investing in projects. CertiK, a Blockchain security company, has highlighted Q3 2023 as the most 'damaging' period for cryptocurrency ventures, where numerous crypto ecosystems experienced hacking primarily via private key exploits, exit scams, and oracle manipulation. In just the third quarter of 2023, digital assets worth more than $700 million were lost due to various security inconsistencies, surpassing the total losses of $320 million in Q1 and $313 million in Q2.
Published At
11/20/2023 7:44:04 AM
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