Taiwanese Crypto Trading Firm Suspends Operations Following $26 Million Hack

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1700471915-hacker-2300772_1280-1 — Source: Pixabay / Pete Linforth

Taipei-based trading platform, Kronos Research has suffered a cybersecurity breach, leading to a staggering $26 million loss in crypto assets.

The hack was first reported by crypto on-chain sleuth ZachXBT, mapping out the fund outflow and confirming its magnitude.

Looks possibly like $20.3M+ (12800+ ETH)

0x2b0502FDab4e221dcD492c058255D2073d50A3ae pic.twitter.com/sLnFA0VXhk

— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) November 18, 2023

Following the ZachXBT post, the platform acknowledged on Sunday that there was unauthorized access to some of its API keys. The security breach has apparently led to a loss of over $26 million worth of Ether (ETH).

The incident has forced Kronos to halt all trading operations and launch a full-scale investigation. The company also noted that this is the first trading suspension since 2018 and aims to recover the loses quickly.

‘’We paused all trading while we conduct an investigation. Potential losses are not a significant portion of our equity and we aim to resume trading as soon as possible.”

In the interest of transparency
Around 4 hours ago, we experienced unauthorized access of some of our API keys. We paused all trading while we conduct an investigation. Potential losses are not a significant portion of our equity and we aim to resume trading as soon as possible.

— Kronos Research 🟠 (@ResearchKronos) November 18, 2023

The platform assured users that Kronos remains in good standing despite losses. “All losses will be covered internally, no partners will be affected,” it added.

The breach follows the recent notable attack faced by the crypto exchange platform Poloniex, resulting in losses over $100 million.

The Ripple Effect

Crypto exchange WOO X felt the repercussions of this breach, pausing its operations temporarily. This is because Kronos uses the WOO platform and functions as the market maker for spot and perpetual futures market.

Status update
– First and foremost, all client assets are safe
– TLDR our largest liquidity provider Kronos Research recently experienced a hack that caused them to pause all trading on WOO X
– Since Kronos Research is the primary liquidity provider for spot markets and around… https://t.co/sDR8QHvmZC

— WOO X (@_WOO_X) November 18, 2023

However, in an hour, WOO resumed spot and perpetual trading activities and asset withdrawals. The exchange also flagged a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on its website on the same day.

“We are taking steps with adjusting CloudFlare to mitigate future outages. Trading currently remains operational, all users funds are safe and withdrawals remain open,” it said.

The online crypto community criticized the attacks, raising questions on the relationship between both firms. One user compared the unclear connection of Kronos and WOO to that of FTX and Alameda Research.

so if i am getting this correctly

Kronos founded Woo

Woo displays kronos assets as proof of funds/liabilities

Kronos says Woo got hacked, woo says kronos got hacked

why is it smelling like Alameda FTX to me now?

— Grinding Poet (@GrindingPoet) November 19, 2023