With a message on Twitter and complaints of locked accounts, Crypto.com announced it was the first significant exchange hacked in 2022.
The announcement was released overnight just before midnight, as updates came in throughout the day.
The centralized Hong Kong exchange — known for its Matt Demon commercials and staking products — has 190 million active users, an unknown amount of which were locked out of trading as the hack was announced.
Some users pointed out the ironic nature of the misfortune: the same crypto.com that bought the rights to name the LA Staples Center for $700 million locked out customers to try to stop a leak of funds.
“Matt Damon rug Pulled,” one Twitter user, @FPSlebowski, wrote. The user appears to belong to the NeoTokyoCitdel NFT community, a group that prizes ownership and belonging in a futuristic, cyberpunk online world.
‘The Bourne (Stolen) Identity’
Hackers made off with the entire balance or large portions of user accounts.
To survey the damage, the site said in a Tweet that users would be locked out of withdrawing funds. Many Twitter Reddit and forum users also reported that two-factor authentication was down even after Crypto.com gave the all-clear around 1 pm EST. Some even sent screenshots that showed thousands of dollars in ETH were stolen.
“Earlier today, a small number of users experienced unauthorized activity in their accounts. All funds are safe. In an abundance of caution, security on all accounts is being enhanced, requiring users to: Sign back into their App & Exchange accounts; Reset their 2FA,” Crypto.com said in a post.
Even as Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek wrote that “all funds were safe” and that at 1:30 pm EST, “Withdrawals have been resumed,” while users still reported problems.
And Auld Lang Syne
The suspected hack has been one of many attacks in the crypto industry in the past months 12 months. On Oct 1, 2021, Coinbase announced that 6,000 users’ funds were swiped after hackers used a flaw in the SMS recovery texting process.
In August, PolyNetwork published an infamous ‘give the money back please‘ letter to the hacker that stole upwards of $600 million from the exchange. Bitmrt lost about $200 million at the end of the year in a single hack.
Immunefi.com, a crypto-security firm, found that in 2021 alone, $2.66 billion was lost through hacks. Other firms place that number higher at $4 billion or more.
$CRO, the exchange coin, is down -4.52% at the time of writing today and down -9.68% overall this week.
Crypto.com and representatives have not replied at the time of writing.
This is a developing story.
The post Fortune favors hackers as Crypto.com reports ‘suspicious activity’ appeared first on LendIt Fintech News.