Crypto exchange ZB Hacked — nearly $5M stolen by hackers

YEREVAN (CoinChapter.com) —Cryptocurrency exchange ZB is possibly the latest platform to suffer an exploit. According to a report by GMB Ventures researcher chuchuprotocol.eth, hackers may have stolen as much as $4.8 million from the exchange.

“It appears that @ZBexchange has been hacked. From the hot wallet into the hacker’s wallet, the tokens were sold on the DEX,” 

the researcher wrote. 

Blockchain analytics firm PeckShield also further elaborated on the hack. Sharing details of all the transactions, the firm revealed that the loot was in as many as 21 different crypto assets.

According to the post, hackers allegedly stole over $880,000 in Tether (USDT), more than $441,000 in Sandbox’s SAND token, and nearly $335,000 in Dawn Protocol’s native token DAWN.

Popular altcoins in the bounty also included APE, MANA, SHIB, and AXS. 

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The tokens were then sold on several decentralized exchanges for Ethereum, according to PeckShield.

The analytics firm also informed that the alleged hackers sold the stolen tokens on several decentralized exchanges for Ethereum (ETH).

ZB exchange halts transactions 

On August 2, a day before the suspicious transactions, ZB exchange announced that they had suspended certain transactions on the exchange.  

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Citing “sudden failure of some core applications,” the exchange informed users that all users did not “deposit any digital currency before recovery.”

Incidentally, ZB calls itself “The world’s most secure digital asset exchange.” Users are now both confused and angry. They cannot understand how so many transactions took place when the deposit halted all deposits and withdrawals for them. 

“The CEO of Zb.com should make a statement. All ZB users are concerned,” 

one user demanded. 

Blockchain hacks on the increase

Attacks on various blockchain projects are on the increase. According to research by Atlas VPN, blockchain hackers stole approximately $1.3 billion in as many as 78 hack incidents in the first quarter (Q1) of 2022.

In the second quarter of 2022, attackers run off with $718.34 million through 48 major attacks on Web3 projects. 

In the past four weeks, hackers conducted as many as eight successful attacks on various platforms. This marks the third hack in August alone, averaging one daily attack. 

CoinChapter reported that swindlers stole $190.7 million from the Nomad token bridge. This was followed by another $7 million attack on Solana (SOL) wallets the following day. 

Meanwhile, cryptocurrency exchange ZB is yet to come up with an explanation of what happened with the funds.