WazirX Hacker behind crypto theft in India moves $6.5M in Eth to Tornado Cash
The hacker entity behind the July 18 crypto theft on India’s biggest exchange, WazirX, appears to have transferred $6.5 million worth of Ethereum to a crypto platform, the U.S.-sanctioned cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash.
Cyvers, a blockchain security platform, claims a wallet address linked to the hacker who took over $235 million from the Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX recently transferred 2,600 Ether, or $6.5 million at today's prices, to Tornado Cash in an attempt to launder the money, according to a post on X on September 3.
According to Arkham data, the wallet address has not moved any funds to Tornado previously and currently possesses over $155 million worth of different tokens, the majority of which are in ether ($150 million).
In addition, data from cryptocurrency tracking platform DeBank shows that the wallet address, which had a total of $6.7 million as of September 2, now only has $154,000 after the hacker transferred 100 ETH to Tornado Cash 26 times in just one hour.
This coincides with WazirX's September 3rd announcement on X; it had started enabling users to withdraw up to 66% of their Indian rupee token balances from the exchange almost a week before the withdrawal window was supposed to be open.
📢 INR Withdrawals Phase 2 Starts Early!
— WazirX: India Ka Bitcoin Exchange (@WazirXIndia) September 3, 2024
Starting today, all eligible users can now withdraw up to the full 66% limit of their INR balances.
Originally scheduled for 9th September, we’ve moved this up to provide quicker access. Thank you for your continued patience and support… pic.twitter.com/6I3BA220b2
WazirX claims that although the exchange originally planned for the withdrawal period to begin on September 9, it moved the window forward to enable users to access their funds earlier.
The multi-signature wallet of cryptocurrency exchange WazirX was the target of a significant cyberattack on July 18, 2024, which left the company with a loss of over $230 million. According to the exchange, WazirX's capacity to keep balanced collateral against its assets has been impacted by this incident.
While the team concentrates on a partial recovery, withdrawals are still frozen, and trading has been suspended since July 21. It is anticipated that user losses will be shared. Restructuring efforts may prevent users from receiving the full value of their cryptocurrency held on the platform at the time of the attack, according to reports.
In July, the WazirX team started two bounty programs to reward ethical hackers and on-chain investigators who can assist in the asset's freezing and return in an attempt to recover the stolen assets, which are valued at over $230 million. Increasing the possibility that the assets can be tracked and frozen is the goal of the first bounty. A bounty program payment of up to $10,000 USDT would be made available to anyone who can provide actionable intelligence that leads to the freezing of stolen assets.
The White House Recovery was the name of the second Bounty program. 10% of the total amount that ethical hackers are able to assist in recovering is the goal of Bounty. The CoinTelegraph source claims that the upper limit of the white hat program has been doubled to $23 million.
The North Korean Lazarus Group, a well-known state-sponsored hacker group best known for high-profile exploits like a $600 million hack on the Ronin sidechain in 2022, is thought to be behind this attack.
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