Liquid exchange hacked to the tune of $80 million

[Slow death]

for news information: https://cointelegraph.com/news/breaking-liquid-exchange-hacked-to-the-tune-of-80-million

Withdrawals and deposits have been suspended on Liquid, with the exchange promising to provide regular updates as its investigations unfold.

this kind of news is very unpleasant to read, now people who have coins on this exchange will be deprived of access to their coins for some time while the exchange decides the next steps, Is something annoying and a serious problem that this cryptocurrencies market  has had whenever these hack cases happen. imagine if the person needs money urgently in the real world? It's a bad thing that in the future the exchanges need to improve to in cases like these they don't take more than hours to resolve and allow people to withdraw their funds from the exchange.

[mk4]

now people who have coins on this exchange will be deprived of access to their coins for some time while the exchange decides the next steps,

"For some time", heck, maybe never again. And 80 million? Sheesh. By this time you'd think that people would've learned their lessons after so much hacks we've had throughout the years; but unfortunately it seems like people are just going to learn the hard way a.k.a. the "Darwinism" way.

[Kong Hey Pakboy]

That's not a number that we shouldn't care for, that's money that came from a lot of people. Hopefully, they will be able to track down the perpetrator and hopefully recover the stolen funds. This is why I am paranoid when I store a considerable amount of money in exchanges that I use, you don't know what's going to happen next.

[DdmrDdmr]

Stated on their Twitter today:

<…> We are sorry to announce that #LiquidGlobal warm wallets were compromised, we are moving assets into the cold wallet.<…>

https://twitter.com/Liquid_Global/status/1428176357515612165

I figure some things have changed at Liquid since October 2018:

At Liquid, we keep 100% of our customers' cryptocurrency assets in cold wallet storage.
<…>
We’re extremely proud of our track record and the security measures we have in place on Liquid.
<…>
We are one of the few crypto exchanges in the world to employ 100% cold wallet storage for customer assets, so your funds are locked safely away from any malicious activity.
All customer funds are kept offline – the safest way to store crypto.
<…>
We do not want to end up as the latest crypto exchange to fall victim to hackers.

https://blog.liquid.com/cold-wallet-storage-for-cryptocurrencies

Wish not granted ...

They must have moved over these past years from 100% cold storage, whereby withdrawals were processed manually, to warm wallets (as they state). Having to manually validate each withdrawal is not an acceptable model for many, and they must have shifted to a more dynamic model. Somebody found a loophole in their security though, and we'll need to follow events to see how customers are reimbursed, what amount, and hope the exchange doesn’t go into dire straits, dragging all their customers along.

[Stalker22]

now people who have coins on this exchange will be deprived of access to their coins for some time while the exchange decides the next steps,

"For some time", heck, maybe never again. And 80 million? Sheesh. By this time you'd think that people would've learned their lessons after so much hacks we've had throughout the years; but unfortunately it seems like people are just going to learn the hard way a.k.a. the "Darwinism" way.

Well, yeah ... But unfortunately, "Darwinism" does not work in a so-called "civilized" society where the survival of the fittest does not apply and where stupid people are allowed to breed and produce even more stupid people. 

So, we can expect a lot more stories like this as time goes on.

[FatFork]

They must have moved over these past years from 100% cold storage, whereby withdrawals were processed manually, to warm wallets (as they state). Having to manually validate each withdrawal is not an acceptable model for many, and they must have shifted to a more dynamic model. Somebody found a loophole in their security though, and we'll need to follow events to see how customers are reimbursed, what amount, and hope the exchange doesn’t go into dire straits, dragging all their customers along.

What's a "warm" wallet anyway? There is no such thing; it is either cold storage (offline and securely airgapped) or it isn't. There is no gray area, as far as I know.
Whatever the case may be, I hope that non-Liquid will figure out how to compensate the affected users and that it will become Liquid again.

[dothebeats]

What I’m keen to know right now is if they will have some form of reimbursement to the users who had their money hacked. While $80 million may not be as big as it sounds when it comes to the crypto market, it still is a pretty huge amount by no means. The exchange is also not as big as others, so it would be a challenge for them to do the said reimbursements.

This further reinforces the relevance of the quote ‘not your keys, not your crypto’ to those who may have lost funds during the hack.

[just_Alice]

Unpleasant indeed, maybe users will finally make some conclusions. There have been many hacks on other popular exchanges, like Binance. People should know better than store coins on the exchanges, they’re not meant for it! Especially if it’s, like you said, money they might need tomorrow.

[rosenbauer02]

It always comes to "I have learned my lesson that storing coins in an exchange site is a very bad decision to make. Now that it happened then I wouldn't do it again. This is indeed unpleasant to read especially those who stored their coins in that exchange.

[blockman]

I've probably heard of this exchange before but didn't use them. Too bad that they have to suspend withdrawals but I understand the perfect situation that OP has given about withdrawing and needing the account balance in the real world. I hope that there will be compensation or if there's not, there's no affected money from those depositors that are just simply using them. I guess after the suspension, they're going to make a progress tracking the culprit on this hacking.

[mindrust]

for news information: https://cointelegraph.com/news/breaking-liquid-exchange-hacked-to-the-tune-of-80-million

Withdrawals and deposits have been suspended on Liquid, with the exchange promising to provide regular updates as its investigations unfold.

this kind of news is very unpleasant to read, now people who have coins on this exchange will be deprived of access to their coins for some time while the exchange decides the next steps, Is something annoying and a serious problem that this cryptocurrencies market  has had whenever these hack cases happen. imagine if the person needs money urgently in the real world? It's a bad thing that in the future the exchanges need to improve to in cases like these they don't take more than hours to resolve and allow people to withdraw their funds from the exchange.

Wasn't liquid a centralized network? Nowadays hackers can even hack the decentralized apps/exchanges which normally people thought was impossible. When the hackers are that skillful it is naive to think the hacks will end sometime in the future.

Hacking an exchange is like robbing a bank but much easier.

You don't need to carry guns and risk your own body. You just need to be super smart and the reward for being smart is insanely high.

[nelson4lov]

this kind of news is very unpleasant to read, now people who have coins on this exchange will be deprived of access to their coins for some time while the exchange decides the next steps, Is something annoying and a serious problem that this cryptocurrencies market  has had whenever these hack cases happen. imagine if the person needs money urgently in the real world? It's a bad thing that in the future the exchanges need to improve to in cases like these they don't take more than hours to resolve and allow people to withdraw their funds from the exchange.

Too bad for Liquid exchanges. It's even worse that their dev team can't figure out how they got hacked. Liquid used to pride itself as one of the most secured exchanges even back when they were called "Quione". Hopefully, they can recover some of those funds. It's sad to see these hacks every now and then in crypto. There's so much money and opportunities in the space and at the same time, so many have lost their life savings, capital, etc to either scam or hacks. This is exactly how cryptopia folded.

[DeathAngel]

Terrible news if it is indeed a hack & not an inside job. These exchanges must develop better security but it’s tough, some hackers are extremely skilful. I hope it’s not an exit scam by the exchange but I guess the results are the same either way, users have lost their money

[worldofcoins]

I'm surprised that there's another exchange hack, haven they learned anything from Bitfinex and Etherdelta hack?

If the exchange is faking the hack then I wouldn't be surprised mostly if it's a dead exchange and people had money on it for over a month which is a lot of time to trust a source with your money when you don't know them in real life.

My conclusions would be the following if I had money on the website would be - Forget there's any money I own that is on that exchange.
Also, the exchange said they will inform the users but it's uncertain if they will get their money back.

[tippytoes]

I'm surprised that there's another exchange hack, haven they learned anything from Bitfinex and Etherdelta hack?

If the exchange is faking the hack then I wouldn't be surprised mostly if it's a dead exchange and people had money on it for over a month which is a lot of time to trust a source with your money when you don't know them in real life.

My conclusions would be the following if I had money on the website would be - Forget there's any money I own that is on that exchange.
Also, the exchange said they will inform the users but it's uncertain if they will get their money back.

This is the reason why it is really good to trade or leave funds in the exchange with insurance like Binance. So even if there will be hacking or any problem, you know, you can still get your money back. Unlike with this situation, the traders with funds on this exchange will have no assurance if they can get it back or when they will get it back. Inside job also is one of the common reasons why an exchange can easily become vulnerable to this kind of catastrophe.

[franky1]

Wasn't liquid a centralized network?

there is a network called liquid. but this hack isnt to do with that.

liquidGlobal is a japanese exchange 'borrowing' the same name
much like blockchain.info borrows the name of the tech underlying crypto.. but that does not make blockchain.info an actual blockchain.

[ultrloa]

I'm surprised that there's another exchange hack, haven they learned anything from Bitfinex and Etherdelta hack?

If the exchange is faking the hack then I wouldn't be surprised mostly if it's a dead exchange and people had money on it for over a month which is a lot of time to trust a source with your money when you don't know them in real life.

My conclusions would be the following if I had money on the website would be - Forget there's any money I own that is on that exchange.
Also, the exchange said they will inform the users but it's uncertain if they will get their money back.

Well we can't deny that we will think about that your though is happening on that exchange since there are so many similar to that situation where hacking is made as an excuse by scammers to successfully run and take the money of their depositors so hopefully this is not another hack and leave scam schemes made by them. Lesson for depositors to trade only on top exchange and don't leave any huge amount on their exchange accounts.

[mk4]

Terrible news if it is indeed a hack & not an inside job. These exchanges must develop better security but it’s tough, some hackers are extremely skilful. I hope it’s not an exit scam by the exchange but I guess the results are the same either way, users have lost their money

I've always thought that the business model of the likes of Bull Bitcoin(a Canadian bitcoin exchange that doesn't provide wallet services, instead sends the bitcoin straight to your own wallet) has always been a net-positive for the cryptocurrency space; simply due to the fact that it teaches(a.k.a. forces) their users to use non-custodial wallets. Unfortunately exchanges that provide wallet services are simply far more better business-wise due to the laziness of most people.

[Hughes_Ryan]

This news has also proved a serious decrease from the increasing security and risk of Cex, the symptoms of Binance, Liquid, etc. what we have been predicted is gradually revealed, no key is kept.  , not your property.  I had to transfer to Dex part of my assets at Binance.  I can't dig a hole there.  Lol

Although Binance is not affected as such, their illness is legally heavy

[5thFear]

That is why its not good to make big claims. They should be up the quality of their exchange rather then making big claims about being them the most secure exchange.