Remitano exchange allegedly hacked for $2.7M

[stompix]

Remitano exchange allegedly hacked for $2.7M; $1.4M frozen by Tether

Crypto exchange Remitano experienced large withdrawals under suspicious circumstances on Sept. 14, with some blockchain analysts concluding that it may have been hacked. A total of $2.7 million worth of crypto has been withdrawn through the suspicious transactions. Tether has frozen one address the attacker allegedly used, potentially saving $1.4 million worth of customers’ crypto.
Tether subsequently froze the address to prevent the attacker from cashing out USDT, which prevented $1.4 million of the drained crypto from being moved any further. Remitano has not yet issued a statement regarding the incident.

Now this is a strange one, completely different from the recent ones like coinex and stake at least on how the situation evolves.
There is absolutely no news from Remitano for the allegedly hack, but the suspicious moving funds have been frozen, I've checked their Twitter and there is no news no update about this, it might be one event in a thousand when the exchange is not hacked and totally legit funds are frozen.

 

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[OmegaStarScream]

Not only didn't they post anything about the hack, but they are posting other stuff. But since Tether froze the address, I can't imagine them doing that unless they know for a fact that Reminato got hacked?

EDIT: They just released an official statement: https://remitano.com/forum/ng/134684-latest-updates-on-recent-security-incident-on-remitano

[BitMaxz]

I've checked their Twitter and there is no news no update about this, it might be one event in a thousand when the exchange is not hacked and totally legit funds are frozen.

I think it's hidden to non register twitter account but if you login you can find their announcement about this news.

Check this tweet a few hours ago
- https://twitter.com/remitano/status/1702616445862265265?t=N5obRKMFW-0iBRPGOkRtAQ&s=19

[rat03gopoh]

Will this be a useless hack? Almost 90% of assets that are USDT (ERC20 and TRC20) have been frozen and the rest in ETH instead deposited into centralized services. What a strange hacker. https://twitter.com/CyversAlerts/status/1702566664758337770

[un_rank]

I think it's hidden to non register twitter account but if you login you can find their announcement about this news.

What does this mean?
That they have a private newsletter where it was announced or it was shared on a private twitter account for only users? I think both did not happened and they just did not report the incident as it happened to try and control the situation first.

Check this tweet a few hours ago
- https://twitter.com/remitano/status/1702616445862265265?t=N5obRKMFW-0iBRPGOkRtAQ&s=19

This is still much later than when it was announced.

- Jay -

[stompix]

I think it's hidden to non register twitter account but if you login you can find their announcement about this news.
Check this tweet a few hours ago
- https://twitter.com/remitano/status/1702616445862265265?t=N5obRKMFW-0iBRPGOkRtAQ&s=19

There is no such thing as hidden tweets, it's just that the tweet is newer than my post, there was nothing when I checked and you can see that from the dates. Besides, even when I made this the news was already 10 hours old and the funds were blocked more than one day ago!
Most likely they never realized what happened till people started calling them!
They claimed that they discovered the breach on the 14th but till miday the 15th they didn't say a word!

Will this be a useless hack? Almost 90% of assets that are USDT (ERC20 and TRC20) have been frozen and the rest in ETH instead deposited into centralized services.

Hihi, centralized exchanges and centralized blockchain to the rescue! 

[BitMaxz]

There is no such thing as hidden tweets, it's just that the tweet is newer than my post, there was nothing when I checked and you can see that from the dates. Besides, even when I made this the news was already 10 hours old and the funds were blocked more than one day ago!
Most likely they never realized what happened till people started calling them!
They claimed that they discovered the breach on the 14th but till miday the 15th they didn't say a word!

Oops... didn't pay attention to the date of your thread vs. the Remitano tweets.

The reason why I said it's hidden because recently I was trying to find tweets on Google but I couldn't find any except the news from other websites.

So, I decided to check their account directly to see if they mentioned anything about the news, but they hadn't posted anything about it until I logged in and saw the new post regarding the hack.

About the delayed announcement from Remitano, I believe they kept the news hidden first to prevent customers from panicking.
What I find curious is why the news appeared first on other websites before they announced the breach, and how did other websites find out that Remitano was hacked.
It seems like someone is monitoring their wallet or what I'm thinking is do they possibly have contact inside?

[rat03gopoh]

What I find curious is why the news appeared first on other websites before they announced the breach, and how did other websites find out that Remitano was hacked.

That's "alleged" news which means it has not confirmed yet, cointelegraph didn't refer to remitano's official news. Contributors to news sites work quickly with each other to publish articles (perhaps they have many drafts of articles).
The first one here is actually @CyversAlerts. I think these journalists follow these kinds of blockchain analysts on Twitter more for their article material.

Anyway, this is a funny case.

[coupable]

On September 14, 2023, our Security Management team discovered a data breach froma third-party source that had compromised some of our sensitive information. As a result, a small amount of funds from the exchange's hot wallets were transferred to suspicious wallet addresses through unauthorized withdrawal transactions.

I find it funny that they consider $2.7 million a small amount.
According to the same article, there is confirmation that users’ savings have not been hacked and that it is sufficient for users to request a new deposit address to enjoy all services as if nothing had happened.
My attention was drawn to the platform's delay in announcing the incident and how they seem to be dealing with the event completely coldly. I do not know how websites were able to monitor and publish the news before Remitano herself did so.
I usually don't feel well when hacks coincide without the stages of dealing with them being precise.

[OmegaStarScream]

-snip-
About the delayed announcement from Remitano, I believe they kept the news hidden first to prevent customers from panicking.
What I find curious is why the news appeared first on other websites before they announced the breach, and how did other websites find out that Remitano was hacked.
It seems like someone is monitoring their wallet or what I'm thinking is do they possibly have contact inside?

As mentioned above. It's blockchain analytics companies. They usually make the first tweet because they monitor addresses and can detect unusual/suspicious activity. And we've seen the same thing happening with Stake: https://twitter.com/peckshield/status/1698697721342042621

Now obviously, I'm pretty sure that the exchanges are notified when they get unauthorized access to their hot wallets but I would imagine they can't just go ahead and tweet about it. They need to analyze the situation and write a proper official statement.

[Woodie]

Something I find strange about all this is that it is all happening within the same period

and strangely enough, the affected coins are all on the 0x blockchains (Ethereum. Binance etc)...

Is it possible that these hackers have found an exploit in the code of a wallet that all of the affected companies are using, this cant be a coincidence  

There is absolutely no news from Remitano for the allegedly hack, but the suspicious moving funds have been frozen

centralized coins can be a double edged sword and in this incident this could be the good side of the sword as Tether is going in for some damage control

[stompix]

-snip-
About the delayed announcement from Remitano, I believe they kept the news hidden first to prevent customers from panicking.
What I find curious is why the news appeared first on other websites before they announced the breach, and how did other websites find out that Remitano was hacked.
It seems like someone is monitoring their wallet or what I'm thinking is do they possibly have contact inside?

As mentioned above. It's blockchain analytics companies. They usually make the first tweet because they monitor addresses and can detect unusual/suspicious activity. And we've seen the same thing happening with Stake: https://twitter.com/peckshield/status/1698697721342042621

These days you can't make a 10 sats fart without every single individual knowing that, I just love the irony in all of this, we're protesting against public cameras and cookies tracking our shopper profile but god how everyone loves knowing how much that individual has in Bitcoins where he sent it, from who he gets it, and so on! Bitcoin has some pseudo-privacy that everyone cheers for and demands more and the same millions are subscribing to whale alerts and trying to figure out who that guy that did this and that is.

As for how the news went, it's not even as complicated as normal surveillance, tether signals when they freeze funds and I'm pretty sure they reacted that fast not because of that analytics company but because they probably know every single address exchange use and it getting empty is probably and instant trigger. I find it far more plausible and it explains why some funds are getting frozen almost instantly while others are not even days after.

and strangely enough, the affected coins are all on the 0x blockchains (Ethereum. Binance etc)...

In all the hacks there are a few alts also but everyone focuses on the large sums and as always these two are the most liquid ones and make more of the hot wallets share. Both Remitano and stake hack had other coins involved too, it's just that the headlines don't mention them if they are not big compared to the overall number, sensationalist journalism at its best.

[hugeblack]

Sometimes being silent and letting the positive news speak is much better than telling the negative truth. Instead of having news like Remitano exchange allegedly hacked for $2.7M come to the forefront of the scene, it is better to have news like Tether later froze the address to prevent the attacker from cashing out USDT, which may give depositors A sense of relief because panic may lead the platform to bankruptcy, even if $2.7M represents 1% of its assets.

What started to scare me the most was the dominance of USDT and people’s confidence that Tether could freeze addresses. As good as some may find it, it is very scary.

Other logical explanations are that it may be an insider or a dispute between owners.

I find it funny that they consider $2.7 million a small amount.

I do not know what the trading volumes of Remitano exchange, but in general, we can consider $2.7 million an amount that they can pay.