KuCoin Hacker Moves $4.5M of Stolen XRP

Part of the stolen funds from Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin was moved in batches onto a host of crypto exchanges, Whale Alert revealed Tuesday 29 September.

The hackers moved $4.5 million of stolen XRP tokens in one transaction.

Moreover, hackers transferred $4.5 million worth a total of 18.49 million XRP in one fell swoop.

In addition, the hackers divided the tokens into two parts—1.35 million XRP ($333,000) and 7.14 million XRP ($4.2 million) respectively. They sent them to two different crypto wallets.

The exchanges in question included Huobi, Binance, and BYEX, according to Decrypt.

Meanwhile, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) tweeted, “Our team was already on it”.

These transactions came after the hackers also made a series of relatively small transactions in various cryptocurrencies. Twelve transfers from the “Kucoin Hack 2020” address were made, ranging from $11,000 to $1.5 million of stolen assets, in the six hours prior to these major transactions.

Combined with the XRP transaction, the hacker has moved a total of $9.96 million in crypto.

Earlier, KuCoin reported noticing unusually large withdrawals of Bitcoin and Ethereum to a mysterious wallet on 25 September.

KuCoin CEO Johnny Lyu subsequently announced that a number of hackers had obtained access to hot wallets on the exchange. When KuCoin noticed the hack happening, they swiftly transferred whatever remained in the hot wallets to new hot wallets. They abandoned the hacked hot wallets and froze customer deposits and withdrawals.

The hacker purportedly robbed hot wallets of about 11, 484 Ether, worth about $4 million. The hack also affected an additional $146 million of other tokens, bringing the total to about $150 million.