A cryptocurrency exchange with about 2 million users worldwide said that it “suffered a serious attack in cyberspace“. Some basic services were “paralysed” while the “intruder” tried to gain access to the exchange wallets.
The platform has suspended its operation, stating that a “comprehensive inspection” should be carried out, which is expected to take one to two weeks.
According to Hotbit, the attack took place at 08:00 PM UTC on April 29th. Also, according to the announcement, the attack was located and blocked by the platform control system.
The exchange states that “it is going to exceed 2 million registered users and has a huge service system architecture with more than 200 servers on the Internet, and to ensure security, the Hotbit team will completely reinstall all servers.”
Insisting that all customers’ assets are “safe and secure”, the exchange announced the following:
“The Hotbit team immediately shut down all inspection and restoration services.”
Regarding the period of restoration of its operation, the exchange expects that it will take about 7 to 14 days, emphasising that “it is expected to be at least 7 days”. In addition, “Estimated recovery time will be longer as things go.”
Following the announcement of the attack, cryptocurrencies were transferred from Hotbit addresses. The exchange claims that these are transfers due to the creation of new “cold wallets”.
The exchange explained that the attacker deleted the users’ database, after failing to access the cryptocurrencies. It also warned that the attacker had gained access to the database, so the registered phone numbers, email addresses and assets of the users may have been leaked. While stating that there are backups of the database, the company says, “we are still unsure whether the attacker has infected data or not before the attack”, justifying the need for a “comprehensive inspection“.
