WazirX, India's leading cryptocurrency exchange, has experienced a significant security incident resulting in the unauthorized withdrawal of more than $230 million in digital assets. The breach occurred early in the morning in Europe on Thursday, July 18, affecting a specific wallet of the exchange and causing the loss of funds belonging to its users. Known as 'India Ka Bitcoin Exchange,' WazirX confirmed the breach through a statement on its official social media platform, formerly known as Twitter. The exchange primarily serves the Indian market and is one of the few exchanges registered with the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), enabling it to legally provide cryptocurrency exchange services to Indian nationals.
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. We'll keep you posted with further updates," reads the company's post on X.
According to a report in Coindesk, Blockchain sleuth Elliptic, the North-Korea linked hackers appear to be behind the attack. "Transactional data shows the exploiter is actively selling the stolen holding using the on chain exchange Uniswap. The exploiter is yet to sell their ETH holdings, and holds over $4.2 million in FLOKI tokens," said the report. The hack comes at a time when the Indian government is scrutinizing the cryptocurrency industry and considering stricter regulations.