Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange BingX has increased its estimated losses from a suspected hacker attack on Sept. 20 to over $52 million, which is double the initially reported $26 million.
Start of the Attack and Initial Estimates
Earlier reports from blockchain security firm PeckShield identified one Ethereum wallet linked to the attack, which received $26.7 million in assets from BingX. Further investigations revealed significant damages across multiple blockchain networks.
Clarifying the Scale of Losses
"As more wallets are identified, the total loss grows. Initial estimates, like $13 million, were likely incomplete, but updates from forensics firms, now reporting figures like $43 million, show a clearer picture," said Hakan Unal, senior security operations lead at Cyvers Alerts, in a statement to Cointelegraph. Additionally, Cyvers' threat intelligence system estimated the total loss across all chains to be $52 million.
BingX's Response and Actions
BingX downplayed the incident, describing the cyberattack as causing only "minor" losses. “All user losses from this hack will be fully covered by BingX’s own capital,” said Vivien Lin, product chief at BingX, in a statement to Cointelegraph. Lin noted that security firms had helped freeze approximately $1 million of the stolen funds as of the time of writing. BingX is still in the process of calculating its total losses.
BingX’s breach occurs amid a rising trend of cyberattacks targeting centralized cryptocurrency exchanges in Asia. Indonesian exchange Indodax suffered a $20.58 million hack on Sept. 10. Indian exchange WazirX experienced a major breach, losing $234.9 million on July 18. Japan’s DMM Bitcoin faced the largest attack of 2024 so far, with hackers stealing $305 million in assets on May 31. Security experts have attributed the attacks on Indodax, WazirX, and DMM to North Korea’s state-backed Lazarus Group.
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