Iranian Exchange Nobitex Loses Over $81M in an Attack by Israel-linked Hackers

TL;DR

• The Nobitex exchange suffered a hack on Wednesday, losing over $81 million to the attackers.

• A pro-Israel hacker group calling itself “Gonjeshke Darande” has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Nobitex Loses $81M in a Hack

Iran-based cryptocurrency exchange Nobitex has lost over $81 million worth of cryptocurrencies after experiencing a hack. This is according to onchain investigator ZachXBT.

The attack drained at least $81.7 million in assets across the Tron network and Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible blockchains.

According to ZachXBT, the attackers used a “vanity address” to exploit the protocol, which resulted in “suspicious outflows” from multiple Nobitex-linked wallets.

A vanity address is a public wallet address with a specific, user-defined sequence of characters. A pro-Israel hacker group by the name “Gonjeshke Darande” has claimed responsibility for the attack. 

The cryptocurrency exchange confirmed the hack, adding that a portion of its hot wallets saw signs of “unauthorized access.” However, the access was suspended upon detection. 

Nobitex also assured users that their assets were completely secure according to cold storage standards, and the incident only affected a portion of the assets in hot wallets. Furthermore, all damages will be compensated through the insurance fund and Nobitex resources, the crypto exchange added.