Cybercriminals Steal $60 Million From Japan’S Zaif Crypto Exchange

Cybercriminals have stolen over $60 million (6.7 billion yen) worth of cryptocurrency from Japanese cryptocurrency exchange, Zaif, which is the 35th largest cryptocurrency exchange dealing in Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Monacoin.

According to cyptocurrency firm Tech Bureau Corp, owners of  Zaif crypto exchange, the hack occurred on Sept. 14 when unknown hackers gained access to the exchange's hot wallets and transferred the stolen funds to their own wallets.


The sad news is that the Nishi-Ku, Osaka based crypto firm had already been hit with two business improvement orders by regulators this year alone. To make it worse, the crypto firm wasn't aware of the breach which happened on the 14th of September ...only to discover the breach on the 17th of September when its servers were having issues. Now this time is enough for the hackers to cover their tracks.

現在、BTCとMONAの入出金がサーバ障害により、停止しております。復旧に向け調査中です。入出金をお控えいただけますようよろしくお願いいたします。ご迷惑をお掛けして申し訳ございません。

— Zaif - 暗号通貨取引所 (@zaifdotjp) September 17, 2018

The tweet above from Zaif suggests the crypto exchange stumbled upon the breach when they were investigating a server failure which they urged users to not deposit make withdrawals from their wallet.

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According to documents seen by Reuters, "Japan's Financial Service Agency would emergency checks on cryptocurrency exchange operators' management of customer assets following the theft."

Though it is still unknown how the hackers managed to access the exchanges hot wallets, Tech Bureau has however, said it agreed with JASDAQ-listed Fisco Ltd to receive 5 billion yen ($44.59 million) investment in exchange for majority ownership. The proceeds from the investment would be used to replace the digital currencies stolen from clients accounts.

Early this year, Coincheck, a Tokyo-based crypto exchange suffered a massive hack when unknown hackers accessed its wallets carted away with over $532 million (58 billion yen) worth of cryptocurrency.