Hackers Drain $235M From Indian Exchange WazirX, WRX Plunges 15%

Unknown bad actors have drained hundreds of millions worth of cryptocurrencies from the leading Indian digital assets exchange Wazirx, following a breach in the platform’s wallet security.

A tweet by blockchain security firm Cyvers Alerts revealed that $234.9 million of WasirX’s funds were moved to a new address, and the caller of each transaction is funded by the crypto mixer Tornado Cash.

WazirX Loses $235M in Wallet Hack

Cyvers’ system detected multiple transactions involving WazirX’s Ethereum-based Safe Multisig wallet during early European hours. The security team attempted to contact the exchange 30 minutes before the tweet was posted but received no response.

At the time of the announcement, the attacker’s addresses had already swapped the stolen Pepe (PEPE), Gala (GALA), and Tether (USDT) to ether (ETH) and executed more swap transactions. Other stolen crypto assets include Polygon (MATIC), Floki Inu (FLOKI), Shiba Inu (SHIB), 1Inch (1INCH), Uniswap (UNI), and the FTX Token.

Data shared in the Telegram Channel Investigations by ZachXBT shows that the attacker’s wallets still hold $221 million worth of tokens at press time. The largest tokens in the stash include $87.5 million worth of SHIB, $4.6 million worth of MATIC, and $93.5 million worth of ETH.

Investigation Ongoing

While the attacker continues to dump the stolen assets for ETH, WazirX has informed the community that its team is investigating the incident. The exchange has paused crypto withdrawals to contain the incident, secure assets, and mitigate losses.

“We’re aware that one of our multisig wallets has experienced a security breach. Our team is actively investigating the incident. To ensure the safety of your assets, INR and crypto withdrawals will be temporarily paused. Thank you for your patience and understanding. We’ll keep you posted with further updates,” the exchange tweeted.

The attack has negatively impacted the price of WazirX’s native token, WRX. CoinMarketCap shows that the token lost roughly 15% of its value as soon as news of the attack emerged. WRX slumped from $0.168 to $0.143 in a swift move, and since it had recovered slightly to $0.148 at the time of writing, the token is down 13% in the past 24 hours.