Customers of hacked exchange bithub.im have received 2.1 million rubles

In the night of June 4 to 5, unknown hackers hacked the cryptocurrency exchange bithub.im and stole about 5 million rubles. To date, about half of the losses have been reimbursed to the victims. This was reported to ForkLog by representatives of the monitoring service BestChange.ru.

According to preliminary data, on the night of the incident the attackers bypassed the monitoring service’s automated protection system and the moderators’ procedures, after which they seized control of the service.

“The attackers also managed to disable the Telegram notifications sent to the exchange administrator about exchange requests, and entirely delete information about exchange requests received from 00:00 to 08:00 Moscow time on June 5. The administration of bithub.im had to shut down the service,” said Sarkis Darbinian, managing partner of the Digital Rights Center law firm, which represents the exchange.

Representatives of bithub.im informed BestChange of the hack. The exchange’s account on the monitoring service was suspended.

Later, the administration of bithub.im stated that the attackers had access to the exchange’s management for more than seven hours. All funds that were deposited during that period to the exchange were obtained not by the service’s administration, but by unknown third parties.

A criminal case has been opened on this fact and a pre-trial investigation has begun.

“The actions committed by unidentified individuals or a group may fall under the signs of offenses provided for by Article 272 of the RF Criminal Code ‘Illicit access to computer information’, Article 273 ‘Creating, using and distributing malware’, and Article 159.6 ‘Fraud in the sphere of computer information’,” — commented Sarkis Darbinian.

During an independent investigation, BestChange identified potential weaknesses in the protection of the hosting and the hacked service.

“Based on the data obtained, the mechanisms for checking suspicious operations, as well as anomalous behavior, for round-the-clock exchange points have been improved. Recommendations have been developed for other exchange services, whose owners were informed about possible shortcomings in the security of the hosting center service reg.ru,” added representatives of the monitoring service.

From August 5, with the help of investors who wished to remain anonymous, BestChange initiated the first wave of payouts to those affected. To date, 2.1 million rubles have been reimbursed.

The parties continue to work on establishing all the circumstances of the hack and mitigating the consequences.

In late June, the non-custodial Blender Wallet was attacked. The attackers allegedly stole around 100 BTC (about $3.2 million at the time of the incident). For ForkLog, experts provided a detailed analysis of this incident.

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