HTX has announced that the hacker has until October 2, 2023, to return the funds.
The HTX crypto exchange, formerly known as Huobi, has lost a total of $7.9 million to hackers in a September 24 attack. The amount lost in the HTX hack was first noted by a blockchain analytics platform Cyvers.
That was before the report was later confirmed by Tron founder and HTX advisor Justin Sun on Monday. Taking to his X (formerly Twitter) account, Sun wrote:
“HTX has suffered a loss of 5,000 ETH due to a hacker attack.”
However, he was also quick to put to bed all customer fears concerning their assets. Sun noted that “HTX has fully covered the losses incurred from the attack and has successfully resolved all related issues.”
HTX Hacker Gets Ultimatum
Meanwhile, it appears that the exchange has already figured out who the attacker. It could become clear from a message posted by a known Huobi hot wallet the morning after the attack. The wallet is owned by blockchain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence, which is listed on a Huobi support page as belonging to it.
Per the message, the exchange is willing to take only 95% of the amount stolen, while the hacker may keep the remaining 5% as a reward for their troubles.
The offer, though, is time-bound. HTX exchange has announced that the hacker has until October 2, 2023, to return the funds. The exchange noted that a failure to return the fund would result in the hacker facing the full wrath of the law. The statement says in part:
“If you do not return the funds by the deadline, we will request judicial intervention.”
Without a doubt, 2023 has been quite a rollercoaster year so far, at least for many crypto exchanges. First, there is the battle of compliance that they constantly face with regulators. Then, they also have to deal with endless attacks from relentless bad actors.
These attacks have been particularly impactful on exchanges this year, leading to the loss of a sizeable amount of crypto assets. And HTX’s recent attack easily adds to the list.
To put the above statement into perspective, the highly dreaded North Korean-affiliated Lazarus group alone has amassed no less than $40 million in Bitcoin from their criminal escapades over the year.
Nonetheless, users continue to raise concerns as to whether exchanges even do enough to ensure that unfortunate incidents such as this do not repeat themselves in the future.
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