‘9.4% of total holdings’: Cryptopia reveals extent of January hack

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New Zealand crypto exchange Cryptopia has revealed more details on the hack it suffered in January, suggesting as much as 9.4% of the firm’s entire holdings had been stolen.

In one of the first public statements issued by the exchange since the hack, Cryptopia posted a series of tweets about the attack and its steps towards investigating and recovering from its impact. While the exchange is not yet confident it has assessed the full extent of the damage, they said they thought as much as 9.4% of their entire crypto assets could have been affected.

According to the exchange, “We are continuing to work on assessing the impact incurred as a result of the hack in January. Currently, we have calculated that worst case 9.4% of our total holdings was stolen.”

The firm shied away from putting financial figures on it, but at just short of 10%, the scale of the hack has taken some analysts by surprise.

The exchange was taken offline on January 15, after announcing it had suffered a “security breach which resulted in significant losses.” At the time, they stopped short of providing further information, citing the need for no comment during a live police investigation.

The loss was independently estimated to have been in the region of $16 million, though the exchange is known to have suffered subsequent hacks, even after the police began investigating the original attack.

The second wave of attacks is thought to have amounted to around $181,000, comprised of 1,675 ETH across 17,000 user wallets.

As part of their recovery, Cryptopia said they were individually securing wallets on their platform, assuring users they would have access to secure wallets once the platform is back up and running.

With newly structured wallets coming for Cryptopia customers, in a bid to prevent future hacks, the firm warned customers to take care when making their deposits. It stated, “As a result of the new wallets please immediately refrain from depositing funds into old Cryptopia addresses. We have more updates to come tomorrow, keep an eye on our page.”

Cryptopia was shut out of their offices until February 14, while police investigated the hack. At the time, Detective Inspector Greg Murton of the New Zealand Police said investigations were “progressing well.”

In its latest tweet, Cryptopia announced that the site will be reopened as “read only” by next week.

Update: We are aiming to have the Cryptopia site re-opened as read only by Monday.

— Cryptopia Exchange (@Cryptopia_NZ) February 28, 2019