Bitget CEO Gracy Chen has acknowledged that North Korea was likely responsible for the crypto exchange’s latest hack that stole roughly $352 million.
Substantial withdrawals were spotted from addresses labelled as Bitget hot and cold wallets yesterday, setting off alarm bells across the community.
Crypto investigator Specter Analyst linked the attack to North Korean hacking collective Lazarus Group.
Since then, Chen has confirmed in a livestream that the attack displays the signs of a North Korean operation.
Read more: How 4,000 BTC walked out of Blockstream’s Liquid Network
Chen also revealed that various chains have frozen addresses associated with the hack, and that the Bitget wallet, separate from the exchange, wasn’t affected.
She also ruled out the possibility of a private key compromise, and claimed hackers were able to breach the wallet services backend system, forge transfer details, and authorize their own signing processes.
Bitget’s cold wallets reportedly remained secure while their hot wallets and warm wallet layers were targeted.
Bitget CEO says users funds are covered
Chen claimed user funds were safe, with the majority of the loss covered by Bitget’s User Protection Fund, “which currently holds over $464 million.”
Bitget is now working with independent investigators Mandiant and SlowMist to fully determine what happened. It announced this morning that withdrawels are still temporarily paused.
The Bitget hack was initially expected to involve significantly lower losses, and unfortunately for Bitget, it took place as the exchange celebrated its eighth birthday.
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