Crypto-exchange hacks - 2019 edition

And this year, multiple cryptocurrency exchange platforms suffered security incidents that led to the theft of digital currencies. In total, the losses reached $ 165 million.

January 15 – Cryptopia :
The Cryptopia exchange suspended its activity on January 15 after it discovered a security incident. The police investigation revealed that the theft of digital currencies was worth $ 16 million in ETH and ERC-20 tokens. The hack was facilitated by the weak security policies of the exchange. Cryptopia tried to resume business in March, but subsequently filed for bankruptcy in May. So far, the user funds have not been returned.

March 24 – DragonEX:
Singapore's DragonEx exchange lost $ 7 million worth of cryptocurrencies in a hack. About 450,000 EOS were stolen and later redistributed on several exchanges.

The platform has announced it will offer a "preliminary compensation plan" that will reimburse victims' funds in the equivalent of Tether or Dragon Token.

March 29 – Bithumb:
Hackers targeted Bithumb in March, this time with help from within the exchange. Apparently, the alarm was triggered by an "abnormal" withdrawal from one of his portfolios. Subsequently, the exchange confirmed the theft of $ 13 million in EOS and $ 6.2 million in XRP. Bithumb claimed that the users were not affected, as it was about the company's own funds.

May 7 – Binance:
The world's largest crypto exchange, Binance, was the victim of a theft of 7,000 Bitcoin on May 7. The hacker transferred BTC worth nearly $ 40 million from the company's online wallet. Changpeng Zhao, Binance CEO, said the theft affected about 2 percent of the platform's Bitcoin amount. The funds were covered by the SAFU insurance fund of the exchange.

June 27 – Bitrue:
Singapore-based Bitrue Exchange announced on June 27 that a hacker has exploited a vulnerability in its risk control protocol. The attacker was able to access the personal funds of about 90 Bitrue users that contained nearly $ 5 million in cryptocurrencies.

This time, it was XRP worth $ 4.01 million and ADA worth $ 231,800. The funds have been scattered on other exchanges, and the company is trying to recover them.

July 12 – BITPoint:
The Japanese BITPoint exchange lost $ 28 million in a hack that affected more than 50,000 users. 1,225 BTC, 1,985 BCH, 11,169 ETH and 5,108 LTC were stolen, funds that were later returned to the users of the company's funds. The exchange activity was suspended for one month.

November 26 – UpBit :
The latest hack was victimized by the Upbit platform. On November 26, 342,000 ETH worth a total of $ 49 million was stolen through an "abnormal transaction". The exchange claimed that the loss did not come from user funds and suspended activity on the platform for at least two weeks.

Apart from these hacks, the poor policies of the other two exchanges generated losses for users. QuadrigaCX platforms in Canada and IDAX in China lost access to offline portfolios following the CEO's disappearance.

Fund centralization, regardless of the form it has, is proving to be a major problem for the crypto ecosystem.