Cryptopia saga continues: hacker still at large, robs more Ethereum

The Cryptopia hack is still ongoing according to a new report. The report states that the hacker has transferred another 1675 ETH from Cryptopia wallets. The funds started moving in the early hours of January 28 and lasted until the end of the day. The report cited that funds were moved by the same hacker as some of the funds were caught being transferred to the same wallet address the hacker used during the initial attack.

There are over 1000 wallets which are at risk currently. The report found that some of the at-risk wallets are still active. The wallets which were drained during the hack also registered activity. “Over 5,000 wallets that had already been drained in the original hack, have since been topped up, presumably by unknowing Cryptopia users,” said the report.

The ongoing hack implies that the hacker is still in possession of the private keys to all the cryptocurrency deposits on the exchange. This gives the hacker the freedom to withdraw funds at his will.

The report goes on to say that some of the Ethereum wallets which were drained were filled up with more Ether moments after they lost their funds. The report assumes that this is because “Most of the funds are coming from mining pools. Presumably, these payments are being sent on behalf of miners who opted to receive their rewards automatically via “direct deposit,” and have since forgotten about it.”

The Cryptopia hacker employed a different method to hack the exchange. Unlike other hacks which usually target the smart contract of a crypto exchange, the Cryptopia hacker targetted the cryptocurrency wallets on the exchange and gained access to their private keys.

A security breach was detected by Cryptopia exchange on January 14. A day later the New Zealand police began investigating the hack. The hacker still remains at large and is also actively continuing to hack the exchange using the illegally obtained private keys.

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