CoinEx Hack

On September 12, 2023, CoinEx, a Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange, was hacked, with attackers draining approximately $54 million from multiple hot wallets, as reported by Halborn. Detected at 13:20 UTC, the breach involved unauthorized withdrawals of tokens, including ETH, XRP, TRX, MATIC, SOL, and BTC, facilitated by lax security in hot wallet management, per Halborn.

The attacker, suspected to be North Korea’s Lazarus Group, transferred funds to addresses like 0x8bf8cd7F001D0584F98F53a3d82eD0bA498cC3dE, with one address linked to a $41 million Stake.com hack, per Twitter (@zachxbt). CoinEx, with $800 million daily trading volume per CoinGecko, froze deposits and withdrawals, shut down the hot wallet server, and moved remaining assets to cold storage, per Twitter (@coinexcom).

The exchange pledged 100% compensation for affected users via its User Asset Security Fund, as announced by CEO Haipo Yang on Twitter (@yhaiyang). No funds were recovered, and the Lazarus Group’s involvement, noted in 2023’s $308.6 million in hacks per Hacken, fueled suspicions of phishing-enabled private key compromises.

One of 295 crypto hacks in 2023, costing $2 billion, per Chainalysis, the incident, alongside Alphapo’s $60 million loss, underscored hot wallet vulnerabilities, prompting calls for multisig wallets, phishing-resistant protocols, and enhanced wallet security audits to protect centralized exchanges.