Hacker withdrew $25 million from Kronos Research platform

20.11.2023 09:39
The Taiwanese trading firm Kronos Research reported an attack, as a result of which the attacker withdrew "a small part of the capital."

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

Onchain detective ZachXBT under the company's post in X reported that potential losses amount to about ~ $25 million in Ethereum. 

Sorry should be $25M not $20.3M****

— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) November 18, 2023

According to representatives of Kronos, the attack occurred due to unauthorized access to API keys. The company has temporarily suspended trading for the period of investigation. 

Disabling operations led to problems on the WOO X exchange, founded and managed by Kronos.

It looks like people are having trouble on @_WOO_X! We’ll update you if we know more!

ft: @trading_peter, @yohanandz, @cryptodreams11, @panda___yang, pic.twitter.com/1OgZbrDEuO

— Smol News (@NewsInSmol) November 18, 2023

Later, the trading platform assured that users' funds were safe. 

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

"Since Kronos Research is the main liquidity provider for spot markets and about 40% for perpetual futures, we have temporarily suspended trading through WOO X to protect the users' positions," the project representatives explained. 

A few hours after the announcement, operations with all trading pairs were launched in the same mode. 

Earlier, ZachXBT suspected the theft of 1,282 ETN (~$2 million at the time of the attack) at the CoinSpot exchange as a result of a hacker attack. 

Recall that in November, an on-chain analyst reported a $27 million crypto wallet hack.


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