Almost $5m Withdrawn from ZB.com in Possible Hack

Crypto exchange ZB.com has fallen victim to a possible hack as $4.8 million was withdrawn from its hot wallet, according to security firm PeckSheild.

The money was removed after the suspension of withdrawals from ZB.com, PeckShield reported.

The crypto exchange had halted client withdrawals on Tuesday, citing "temporary maintenance" of the platform, following which the suspected hacking incident was executed.

“Due to the sudden failure of some core applications, it still takes time to troubleshoot the problem. Deposit and withdrawal services are now suspended. Please do not deposit any digital currency before recovery,” ZB.com said in a statement.

PeckShield announced on Twitter that over 20 crypto tokens, including SHIB, USDT, and MATIC, were moved from ZB.com's hot wallet to another address on Tuesday, which later liquidated all but five tokens.

The tokens were then sold on various decentralised exchanges for 2,224 ETH ($3.6 million), and the potential hacker then moved the funds to another address.

ZB.com deals with over $1 billion in trades every day and calls itself "the world’s most secure digital asset exchange."

Meanwhile, another suspected wallet controlled by the potential hacker still holds around $1 million worth of the remaining five tokens. This wallet contained ZB.com's funds from where it was first moved.

ZB.com is one of the oldest crypto exchanges. Formerly known as CHBTC.com, the company had to relocate from China after the country banned crypto trading in 2017. ZB.com is now relocated to Zurich, Switzerland, and has offices in Dubai, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, Russia, South Korea, Hong Kong and the United States.

Hacks in the crypto industry have become rampant. According to a report from Blockchain.News, hackers targeting the Solana ecosystem drained thousands of crypto wallets of funds on Wednesday.

The hack was executed after a flaw was exploited to suck out cryptocurrencies from 8,000 crypto wallets where owners stored their funds, the Solana Foundation announced. The report added that wallet providers, including Slope and Phantom, were also affected.

According to PeckShield, an estimated amount of about $8 million was stolen from four Solana wallets.

While earlier this week, bridge protocol firm Nomad lost around $200 million in security exploit hack. Nomad is a bridge protocol for transferring crypto tokens across different blockchains.

According to a June report from Elliptic, more than $1 billion has been stolen from bridges in 2022.

While in 2020, criminals stole $285 million in crypto from popular exchange KuCoin.