Breaking: Hacked Japanese Exchange Zaif Lost $60 Million

Users of Zaif crypto exchange based in Japan have been recently denied access to the withdrawals and deposits on the exchange. In what would probably be the second significant hacking incident involving an exchange based in Japan, after Coincheck’s hack. The exchange owners revealed in a recent press release (written in Japanese) that the exchange got hacked. Missing funds are still being calculated, but the estimated number could be around $60 million according to the release.

The hackers had stolen 5966 Bitcoin, an unknown amount of Mona coin and Bitcoin Cash. It is estimated that the total loss due to the damage is equivalent to about 6.7 billion yen (app. $60 million).

“Unauthorized access was conducted between 17:00 – 19:00 on September 14, 2018″, as stated by the exchange, “accessing the server managing the hot wallet of the deposits and withdrawals, and also accessed the virtual wallet managed by the hot wallet of BTC, MONA and BCH coins was illegally remitted.”

The company, however, got a hint of such illegal activity when it noticed server abnormalities on Sept 17th. The exchange did not confirm the hack only until the next day.

Zaif Step-Up Plan To Recover

Efforts to re-enable deposits and withdrawals by Zaif are already underway. Aside from reporting to the country’s Treasury Department and investigating the incident, the exchange also claims to have made damages declaration to the authorities.

“Currently, we are checking and strengthening security and rebuilding the server in order to restart the system”, as said the company.

The company has also notified Japan’s Financial Services Agency. A third party investigators known as Kaichi Corporation have also been invited to review possible causes and traces.