Indian police are investigating the theft of crypto assets worth $44 million from the CoinDCX exchange. According to the investigation, hackers accessed the company’s wallets through an employee’s laptop. This was reported by NDTV.
The perpetrators offered the exchange employee, Rahul Agarwal, an online side job. He performed simple tasks, such as writing reviews, initially using his personal computer. Later, Agarwal switched to his work laptop, on which the hackers installed malware without his knowledge.
Police have arrested the employee. According to the investigation, he was unaware of the impending theft. Agarwal received about 1.5 million rupees (approximately $18,000) for completing tasks from the hackers. In an internal investigation, he explained these funds as income from side work.
The investigation is complicated by the fact that the stolen funds were transferred to six foreign wallets. Police stated that tracking cryptocurrency transactions is nearly impossible without the cooperation of foreign exchanges.
On July 22, the management of the Indian crypto exchange issued an official clarification regarding the recent incident. CoinDCX emphasized that they are ready to fully compensate the losses from their financial reserves. According to them, the platform’s annual revenue exceeds $132 million. It was also noted that the treasury and corporate reserves are fully backed with investor support.
Earlier, the platform’s CEO, Sumit Gupta, denied media reports about negotiations to sell to Coinbase for $1 billion.