Indodax exchange goes offline following $22 million crypto hack

Indodax, a cryptocurrency exchange based in Indonesia, has gone offline following a suspected hack that resulted in the loss of around $22 million in various digital currencies.

On September 11, Indodax disabled its mobile and web applications to investigate the breach and assess the extent of the damage.

The breach was identified by blockchain security firms such as PeckShield, Cyvers, and SlowMist, who reported that Indodax’s hot wallets had been compromised.

The attackers managed to steal significant amounts of BTC (CRYPTO:BTC), TRX (CRYPTO:TRX), ETH (CRYPTO:ETH), POL (CRYPTO:POL), SHIB (CRYPTO:SHIB), and other tokens.

SlowMist's investigation suggested that a weakness in Indodax's withdrawal system may have been exploited to access the funds, while Cyvers indicated that other systems, including the signature machine, could also have been affected.

The stolen assets included more than $1.42 million in Bitcoin, $2.4 million in TRX, $14.6 million in various ERC-20 tokens, $2.58 million in POL, and $900,000 in ETH from the Optimism blockchain.

Cyvers detected over 150 suspicious transactions across different networks and noted that the hacker began converting the stolen assets to Ether.

This move is often used before employing crypto mixing services like Tornado Cash to disguise the origins of the funds.

Following the breach, Indodax announced on social media that it would temporarily shut down all operations to conduct a complete review and ensure the platform's security.

"Currently, we are conducting a complete maintenance to ensure the entire system is operating properly," the company said.

The exchange reassured users that their remaining assets are safe despite the incident.

Yosi Hammer, head of AI at Cyvers, suggested that the attack might be linked to North Korea's Lazarus Group.

"The pattern and the characteristics of the (Indodax) attack highly resemble those of North Korea’s Lazarus Group," Hammer explained.