Crypto.com, a popular online marketplace for buying and selling cryptocurrencies, was hit with a massive cyber attack on Wednesday that left millions of dollars stolen. The attack took place at around 10:00am PT when hackers infiltrated the company’s website through a phishing attack, stealing user credentials and other personal information. The company has since released a statement saying that it is working to secure its systems and is investigating the cause of the attack. The theft comes as cryptocurrency prices are on the rise, with Bitcoin reaching an all-time high of $19,783 on Wednesday. The value of Ethereum also surged in recent days, reaching $1,242.
What Happened to Crypto.com?
The hack occurred on January 17, 2022, and the company finally issued a statement in a blog post on January 20, 2022. In it, the company addressed the hack, broke down how much crypto was stolen, and explained how it handled the situation for its users.
As of this writing, the current value of the ETH is $15.2 million, and the BTC is $18.6 million, bringing the total to $33.8 million. That’s a lot of money withdrawn directly from people who use the website to buy and sell crypto.
Thankfully for the website’s users, Crypto.com claims that everyone who had their funds stolen has been fully reimbursed for the substantial losses. 483 users were affected in total.
Of course, that’s a big blow for the company itself, but it’s good to see that it did right for its users, especially since the hack was entirely out of a user’s hands.
From the blog post, here’s what Crypto.com said happened:
What Is Crypto.com Doing to Fix It?
Outside of restoring funds to users, the company is also improving its security measures to prevent something like this from happening again. A hack can be incredibly damaging to customer trust, especially when you’re talking about a place where users are putting in substantial amounts of money.
First, the company added a layer of security that brings a mandatory 24-hour delay between registration of a new whitelisted withdrawal address and the first withdrawal.
Crypto.com also added what it calls a Worldwide Account Protection Program (WAPP), which it says is an “additional protection and security for user funds held in the Crypto.com App and the Crypto.com Exchange.”
Basically, it protects funds if a third party gains unauthorized access to an account and withdraws money without the user’s permission. It restores up to $250,000 for qualified users (you have to have certain things in place on your account to qualify, which is broken down in the company’s blog post).
It’ll be interesting to see if Crypto.com can keep its users’ trust or if the hack will cause them to seek another cryptocurrency exchange. It seems like the company is doing the right things to fix the problem and prevent it from happening again, but that isn’t always enough.
