The Poloniex exchange has fallen victim to a significant security breach, resulting in a staggering $100 million in digital assets being illicitly transferred from one of its crypto wallets. Through blockchain explorer Etherscan, security firms have traced suspicious outflows and determined that hackers indeed compromised the company.
The incident, believed to be a result of a “private key compromise,” has led to the funds being swiftly transferred to four externally owned accounts. Some of these accounts have cleverly converted the stolen assets into Ether, further complicating the recovery efforts.
The exchange took action by disabling the wallet in response to suspicious outflows. However, an official statement regarding the hack has not yet been released by the exchange.
Despite the absence of an official statement from the exchange, Justin Sun, who acquired Poloniex in 2019, informed users that their team is actively investigating the hacking incident. Sun assured affected users that they will be fully reimbursed for any losses incurred.
He emphasized that the exchange maintains a strong financial position and is actively seeking collaborations with other exchanges to recover the lost funds. In a surprising move, Sun also offered a 5% white-hat bounty to the hacker responsible for the breach.
He announced that the attacker has a seven-day window to return the funds before law enforcement authorities become involved.
