WazirX was allegedly breached on Thursday, days before Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Union Budget for FY 2024-2025.
Photo Credit: Unsplash/ Pierre Borthiry
Indian crypto exchange WazirX informed its users about a security breach on Thursday, that reportedly led to suspicious movement of funds worth $234.9 million (roughly Rs. 1,965 crore) into a Tornado Cash-linked wallet. Many crypto investors in India have expressed apprehension about the potential loss of user funds. WazirX's rivals in India, including CoinDCX, Giottus, and CoinSwitch, have assured their users that their funds are safe. Earlier on Thursday, WazirX stated that it was investigating the incident and is yet to provide additional information about the alleged breach.
Other crypto firms have warned investors that the market may experience some volatility in the aftermath of the alleged WazirX breach. The founders of some of these crypto exchanges have asked investors to be mindful about their financial decisions in the coming days. CoinSwitch CEO Ashish Singhal, CoinDCX Co-Founder Neeraj Khandelwal, and Giottus CEO Vikram Subburaj asked crypto investors to remain calm after WazirX acknowledged that it was investigating the alleged data breach.
The government has remained sceptical about embracing the cryptocurrency sector, which is currently worth $2.36 trillion (roughly Rs. 2,36,000 crore). It is highly volatile and governments around the world are concerned that including crypto in existing financial systems could end up disturbing monetary stability because of constantly fluctuating prices.
The alleged WazirX hack has come to light days before Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Union Budget for FY 2024-2025. The crypto sector in India has been urging the government to revise the crypto tax regime and introduce incentives to promote the sector. This incident could dampen the odds of any positive development that could have been expected from the government as part of this budget.
Reactions expressing concerns and disappointment are pouring in on social media around WazirX's mega hack. Some have also noted changes in crypto prices following the attack.
The deposit and withdrawal services of WazirX were halted earlier on Thursday, and remained unavailable at the time of publishing this story.
Meanwhile, cybersecurity firm Arkham Intel initiated a bounty to identify a vulnerability related to this hack on WazirX. The reward offered by Arkham was 5,000 ARKM, and the platform later announced that a user on X (@ZachXBT) solved the bounty.
“@ZachXBT submitted definitive evidence of a KYC-linked deposit address used by the exploiter to receive funds from the WazirX exploit. This fulfills one of the criteria of the bounty - ‘Identifying a KYC centralized exchange deposit'. This information will be shared with the WazirX team,” the firm said in a post on X.
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