Cryptocurrency Exchange Deribit Hacked for $28M in Bitcoin - Full Report
Deribit, a crypto exchange, has been hacked, losing $28M in Bitcoin. The site has temporarily suspended withdrawals until the vulnerability has been fixed. Most of the clients' funds are currently in cold storage. Deribit says it will cover the loss from its reserves, but has asked users to hold onto their funds until their accounts are back up and running.
Deribit hot wallet compromised, but client funds are safe and loss is covered by company reserves
— Deribit (@DeribitExchange) November 2, 2022
Our hot wallet was hacked for USD 28m earlier this evening just before midnight UTC on 1 November 2022.
The hacker managed to gain access to Deribit's hot wallet, a secure storage facility for private keys and withdrawal transactions. Before midnight on November 1, Deribit said in a Twitter post that the hot wallet, which stores BTC, ETH, USDC and Ethereum, had been compromised. While this is a huge blow for the crypto industry, Deribit has said that the stolen funds were only from its hot wallet and were not in any client assets or cold storage addresses.
The Deribit website was not functioning on 1 November at midnight, and it is unclear if withdrawing funds will be possible. Insights, a crypto data hub operated by the firm, shows that there is a "critical error on this website." The trading website, however, is functioning properly.
The Deribit hack is only the latest in a series of cyberattacks affecting the crypto industry. Since the beginning of the year, hackers have been increasingly targeting the industry. The recent attack on Deribit follows another attack on Binance, which stole $570 million worth of cryptocurrency. The latest report by Chainalysis states that there will be more than $3 billion worth of crypto assets stolen by hackers in 2022.