Another day, another crypto hack making cybercriminals multi-millionaires in no time, while leaving unsuspecting crypto investors without funds.
Mixin Network has temporarily suspended its deposit and withdrawal services after cybercriminals targeted the decentralized wallet service. The network, reportedly, has lost $200 million in funds.
Mixin is a Hong Kong-based crypto firm that offers layer-2 protocol-like service to encourage cheaper and more efficient cross-chain transfers.
The network posted its announcement on X (formerly Twitter), stating that on September 23, 2023, its cloud service provider’s database was hacked early Saturday morning, resulting in a loss of approx. US$200 million.
“In the early morning of September 23…the database of Mixin Network’s cloud service provider was attacked by hackers, resulting in the loss of some assets on the mainnet. The funds involved are approximately US$200 million,” Mixin Network’s post on X read.
The network’s token, XIN, fell considerably (around 8% down) after this confirmation. According to its website, Mixin Network attracts 100,000 daily users and has over $1 billion in assets. Moreover, the network reported 663,489 unique transactions of BTC and 179,647 of ETH during July.
Mixin Network contacted blockchain security firm SlowMist and Google to launch an investigation into the hacking. It will reopen the services after confirming that the vulnerabilities are fixed.
However, the network explained that transfers will remain unaffected during this time. The vulnerability was disclosed today by Mixin Network founder Feng Xiaodong in a livestream in which he explained that they can only confirm that half of the assets are at least safe.
“We will try our best to minimize the losses and deeply apologize for this,” the network stated while assuring its users to provide a solution regarding what it intends to do about their lost assets.
SlowMist also posted a statement to confirm the attack on the cloud service provider: “🚨SlowMist Security Alert🚨 – On September 23, the Mixin Network cloud service provider database was attacked, and the amount of funds involved was ~ $200M. SlowMist is assisting in the investigation. Please wait for @MixinKernel updates for more information.”
Chainalysis, a leading blockchain data platform, has found that in 2022 alone, $3.8 billion worth of cryptocurrency was stolen, making it the worst year ever for the community.
Recently, Hackread reported the hacking of the world’s largest Australian cryptocurrency casino, Stake, which lost $41 million worth of cryptocurrency. The incident happened on September 4, 2023, and was caused due to a leaked private key.