Hackers were at it again, this time making away with 59 million dollars’ worth of cryptocurrencies from cryptocurrency exchange, Zaif, which is based in Japan. A local report indicated that the heist was enabled by a security breach that occurred in the 14th of this month where hackers were able to make away with 4.5 billion Yen from hot wallets of users. The hackers did not spare the exchange wither, making away with 2.2 billion yen worth of assets from them. This heist amounted to a devastating loss of 6.7 billion yen or 59.7 million dollars.
The devastating heist was communicated in a press release by the company that operated Zaif, Tech Bureau Inc. in their official account of what happened, Tech Bureau Inc. revealed that they detected an error in the server on the 17th of September after which made the swift decision to suspend all deposits and withdrawals from the exchange. This was done in order to determine what had happened by identifying the leak and getting on top of the situation before it all got worse.
The error was officially discovered to be a hack on the 18th of September. As soon as this was determined, the hack was quickly reported to the Japanese financial regulator known as the financial services agency (FSA). The hackers made away with 5,966 Bitcoins (BTC) as well as some decent amounts of Bitcoin cash and Monacoin (MONA). Tech bureau Inc. the firm that operated Zaif, confirmed that Fisco Digital asset group would help Zaif recover assets belonging to clients. Fisco digital asset group will help aid Zaif in this endeavour by handing them 5 billion yen which is equivalent to 44.5 million dollars.
In light of the dustup that arose from the mega-heist of the exchange, Tech bureau Inc. entered into a pact with Fisco digital asset group agreeing to let go more than half of its directors and corporate auditors on top of Fisco becoming a majority shareholder in the company. This move was seen as drastic but was deemed necessary in order to keep the exchange afloat after that massive hit sustained after the heist. Coinmarketcap ranks Zaif exchange as the 101 largest crypto exchanges in the world by trade volumes. Technical errors are not new to Zaif with the crypto exchange previously admitting to a glitch in their system that allowed users to briefly acquire trillions of dollars’ worth of Bitcoin at no charge at all. It was discovered that 16 customers were accidentally granted the ability to trade yen for crypto for free.
