New Zealand-based cryptocurrency exchange Cryptopia hacked again

The New Zealand-based cryptocurrency exchange Cryptopia suffered a new cyber heist while it is in liquidation due to a 2019 security breach.

In 2019, the New Zealand-based cryptocurrency exchange Cryptopia discloses a cyber attack that took place on January 14th. At the time of the first attack, the threat actors stole approximately USD 30 million worth of cryptocurrencies.

Currently in the exchange is in liquidation, but the bad news is not ended here, because it was hacked again. According to the local news site Stuff, a creditor, U.S. firm Stakenet, was alerted that about NZ$62,000 (US$45,000) in the XSN cryptocurrency had been transferred out of its cold wallet on Feb. 1.

“The alleged theft happened several months after it was revealed a former employee had been charged with stealing almost $250,000 worth of cryptocurrencies and customer data.” reads the post published by stuff.co.nz.

“Stakenet was alerted that about $62,000 worth of XSN cryptocurrency was being moved from its cold wallet (also known as an offline wallet) on February 1. The wallet, which contained about $2.7m in total, had been dormant since the Cryptopia hack in January 2019.”

At the time of the second hack, the wallet contained around 2.7 million NZD worth of Stakenet’s native token called Stakenet (XSN).

The exchange was placed on liquidation in May 2020, the New Zealand High Court judge David Gendall, ruled on April 8 that the ownership of remaining crypto-assets of Cryptopia was assigned to account holders instead of the exchange.

The website of the exchange displays a message informing visitors of the ongoing liquidation process.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Cryptopia)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.