• WazirX’s Safe Multisig wallet hacked, and $230M stolen via Tornado Cash.
  • Exchange suspends withdrawals; community fears this could be India’s biggest crypto hack.

Web3 security firm Cyvers has detected multiple suspicious transactions involving prominent Indian exchange WazirX’s Safe Multisig wallet on Ethereum. According to an X post, it is believed that $234.9 million of funds in the Multisig have been moved to a new address. Each transaction’s caller was funded by Tornado Cash, a decentralized protocol for private transactions.

Lookonchain reported that WazirX has approximately $230 million in assets stolen, including,5.43 trillion SHIB ($102 million),15,298 ETH ($52.5 million), 20.5 million MATIC ($11.24 million), 640.27 billion PEPE ($7.6 million),5.79 million USDT and 135 million GALA ($3.5 million).

Speculation suggests that the use of Tornado Cash to fund the transactions mirrors methods used in previous high-profile attacks. While it is too early to definitively link this incident to the Lazarus Group, the similarities are concerning. The address has already swapped funds comprising USDT, PEPE, and GALA into ETH.

🚨More than $230M of assets have been abnormally transferred from the #WazirX ( @WazirXIndia ) wallet to the wallet"0x04b2".

Currently, wallet "0x04b2" is dumping these assets, and has dumped 640.27B $PEPE ($7.6M). https://t.co/wem0wVk7OH pic.twitter.com/66Poia2qAk

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) July 18, 2024

Moreover, forty-five minutes ago, the WazirX exploiter began selling SHIB. The exploiter has sold 35 billion SHIB ($618,000) and currently holds 5.4 trillion SHIB ($95.45 million). SHIB has experienced a 9% decline in the past 24 hours, trading at $0.00001764. Over $210 million remains to be offloaded.

According to a Telegram post in the “Investigations by ZachXBT” channel, crypto sleuth ZachXBT announced that the suspected primary attacker address still has over $104 million to dump.

WazirX And Community Response

In response to the security breach, the Indian exchange has temporarily paused the withdrawal of cryptocurrencies and Indian rupees on the platform. In an X post, the WazirX team explained that they are “actively investigating the incident”. And that it will provide updates as the situation unfolds.

Meanwhile, concerns mount within the community as the highly secure multisig wallet at WazirX faces compromise, marking one of the largest hacks in recent times. Some even fear this could become the worst crypto incident for Indian users so far.

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