New Delhi: One of the storage wallets of India’s largest cryptocurrency exchange platform WazirX was hit by a cyberattack Thursday, resulting in losses worth nearly Rs 2,000 crore.
WazirX, whose user base exceeds 16 million in India, posted on X about the security breach.
As a safety measure, the exchange platform banned withdrawals — both of funds and crypto assets — from all accounts the same day the cyberattack occurred.
Hours later, Liminal Custody (digital asset custody and wallet infrastructure provider), which hosts several multi-signature wallets on WazirX, claimed that none of the digital asset custody provider’s wallets hosted on the cryptocurrency platform fell prey to the cyberattacks. Rather, the infiltrated wallets were outside of its “ecosystem”, Liminal Custody said.
“Our preliminary investigations show that one of the self custody multi-sig smart contract wallets created outside of the Liminal ecosystem has been compromised. We can confirm that Liminal’s platform is not breached and Liminal’s infrastructure, wallets and assets continue to remain safe,” Liminal Custody wrote on X.
“It is also pertinent to note that all WazirX wallets created on the Liminal platform continue to remain secure and protected. Meanwhile, all the malicious transactions to the attacker’s addresses have occurred from outside of the Liminal platform,” it added.
Around five hours after Liminal Custody made the claim, WazirX contradicted the former and said that a multi-signature wallet operated jointly with Liminal Custody since February 2023 was infiltrated.
The crypto exchange platform said that the multi-signature wallet needed six signatures to function, five of which were from their own team while the remaining one was from Liminal.
It added that the lone signature from Liminal also had the responsibility of verifying transactions.
Breach was a ‘force majeure’ beyond control
WazirX further claimed that it detected the breach when it noticed a difference between data displayed by Liminal’s interface and the actual transactions signed by the authenticators.
“During the cyber attack, there was a mismatch between the information displayed on Liminal’s interface and what was actually signed. We suspect the payload was replaced to transfer wallet control to an attacker,” WazirX said in a statement.
Calling the breach a “force majeure” beyond their control, the exchange platform wrote that some wallets have been blocked. Also, they have reached out to the users to help them recover the stolen amount, the firm said.
(Edited by Radifah Kabir)
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