OKX confirms that the accounts of some of its users were hacked – DiarioBitcoin
By Hannah Perez
Over the weekend it was reported that several OKX users had lost cryptocurrency funds due to an attack, which at the time was estimated to be related to SIM swapping.
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- Two OKX users were victims of a hacking attack that drained their funds
- Previous reports suggested the existence of a security flaw in the authentication system
- OKX denied the reports; He says that the matter has been resolved and that he has compensated the victims
The accounts of some cryptocurrency exchange users OKX were emptied as a result of a hacking attack whose cause is still unknown, the platform confirmed this Wednesday.
In a post on the social network xThe team of OKX said it had verified that a malicious actor “falsified judicial documents” to obtain the account information of some clients and steal their funds on the platform. The company did not detail the extent of the damage but assured that “very few clients” were affected.
Alleged security gap in OKX
Reports had circulated over the weekend that at least two users of OKX They had suffered loss of funds in their accounts on the platform. At the time, the incident was presumed to be related to a SIM swapping attack, a type of scheme that involves duplicating a mobile SIM card.
The founder of the security company Blockchain SlowMistYu Xian, noted on Sunday that both victims of OKX They had received SMS compromise notifications from Hong Kong before a new API key was created as part of their account authentication process, giving permission for withdrawals and other operations.
Others, like the team of analysts at Dilation Effect (DE), suggested that the incident was related to a loophole in the authentication system used by OKXas reported then Protos.
In particular, they said that the flaw supposedly allowed users to disable two-factor authentication (2FA) of Google or the verification of the mobile phone without activating a system to suspend withdrawals or other user activities within the platform. This would allow attackers to drain funds without raising suspicion.
OKX denies accusations and compensates victims
However, OKX has now refuted these accusations. In its message this Wednesday, the cryptocurrency exchange alleged that the event “has nothing to do with choosing Google Authenticator or SMS verification“.
The company added that the incident was resolved “satisfactory” and that the matter is “being investigated by judicial authorities“, which prevents them from providing more details. Besides, The exchange assured that it has compensated the victims and is implementing measures to address the case.
“We have optimized the judicial cooperation process, introduced a verification mechanism, and strengthened the security level of AI facial recognition. We will later introduce an expiration mechanism for authenticated addresses in the address book to prevent such incidents from occurring again. There have been no new cases of theft of user accounts or information leaks“wrote the team OKX.
Journalist Colin Wu reported earlier that the two users whose accounts were compromised received full compensation from the exchange, although the exact loss and compensation figures were not disclosed.
OKXwhich is the third largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume behind Binance and Coinbase, had made headlines a few days earlier for a separate theft from another of his clients worth $2 million in cryptocurrency. That incident was the result of a sophisticated scam that involved a data breach of Telegram.
Article by Hannah Estefanía Pérez / DailyBitcoin
Picture of Unsplashedited with logo OKX
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