After the shocking ~$500-million Coincheck hack — dubbed as the biggest crypto heist ever — early this year, Japan’s Financial Services Agency has been keeping a close eye on the crypto industry, trying its best to bolster the security of crypto firms and, hopefully, prevent another hack from happening. Unfortunately, another Japanese crypto exchange was just hacked last week, which highlights the fact that the security systems of some crypto firms are far from being unhackable.
Zaif Exchange’s Hot Wallet Breached
Another Japanese crypto exchange was hit by hackers who successfully stole $60 million worth of cryptocurrencies during the incident, according to The Washington Post. The hack affected the Zaif exchange and specifically targeted the hot wallet of its clients.
The hack happened on Sept. 14 and lasted for around two hours, according to Tech Bureau Corp. The company, which owns the Zaif exchange, revealed that a server for Zaif crypto exchange was breached by hackers, which resulted in some of their customer’s cryptos inside the hot wallets being stolen.
In crypto parlance, a hot wallet is a crypto wallet that is connected to the Internet, as opposed to a cold wallet, also known as cold storage, which is offline. While a cold wallet is unhackable because it is not connected to the net, a hot wallet is usually used by those who actively trade in digital coins as they can be accessed anytime.
Breakdown of Cryptos Lost
In a press release dated Sept. 21, Zaif revealed the amount the cryptocurrencies it lost on account of the hack, which only affected Bitcoin (BTC), Monacoin (MONA) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) tokens.
The total amount of BTC lost is 5,966, which is roughly equivalent to 4,251,234,047 yen or $38 million. On the other hand, the total MONA lost is 6,236,810 tokens, which is around 671,704,448 yen or $6 million. Meanwhile, the total BCH lost is 42,327, which is about 2,107,677,945 yen or $19 million.
The prices used for the tokens’ conversion to yen is based on Sept. 18’s closing prices, where BTC traded at 712,565 yen, MONA at 107.7 yen and BCH at 49,795 yen.
Of the seven billion yen worth of tokens lost, the company revealed that around 4.5 billion yen worth of cryptocurrencies belongs to its customers. The remaining 2.5 billion yen or around $22 million worth of cryptos belongs to the company.
The company has not revealed if it plans to reimburse clients who were affected by the hack. At the moment, clients who might have questions regarding their holdings are advised to contact Tech Bureau’s public information desk at telephone number 03-6705-8653 or through the email address pr@techbureau.jp.
