- WazirX suffered a $234M crypto hack, losing 45% of its assets from an Ethereum wallet
- Indian authorities, including FIU, IB, and CERT-In, are investigating whether internal involvement is responsible
- WazirX’s parent company, Zettai, is undergoing restructuring and forming a Committee of Creditors (COC) to secure emergency funding
According to the Indian news agency Moneycontrol, WazirX founders in the last couple of weeks met with a team of officials from the Financial Intelligence Unit, Intelligence Bureau, and CERT-In—Indian Computer Emergency Response Team—at the exchange office in Mumbai.
WazirX Under Scrutiny: Government Agencies Take Action
Sources close to the matter said that a group of eight to ten officials spoke with the exchange’s executives in an attempt to understand whether the theft of the cryptocurrency could be the result of a hack perpetrated by internal officials of the company, although “no crime has been detected at this time.”
The exchange shared information on the transaction details, blockchain addresses of the hackers, and servers.
According to the report, personal items like laptops were not seized. Government agencies also inquired about how transfers are made, about liquidity, and other technical aspects related to the management of the exchange. The FIU contacts cryptocurrency industry operators.
Following the hacking incident, the FIU—the national agency that collects information on suspicious financial transactions—contacted a number of industry operators. The agency comes under the Ministry of Finance, while the Intelligence Bureau, under the Ministry of Home Affairs, is investigating the security and counterintelligence angles.
In addition, CERT-In, being an agency that deals with cybersecurity threats, will investigate the technical aspects of the WazirX hack.
Conclusion
WazirX, one of the biggest crypto exchanges in the country, suffered a critical security breach leading to the siphoning of $234 million on July 18. The theft took place from its Ethereum wallet and reduced the cryptocurrencies held by the exchange by 45%.
The probe comes amid restructuring, with the parent company, Zettai, in talks with 11 cryptocurrency exchanges and trading firms to raise emergency funding for WazirX.
In addition, on October 4, WazirX said it would form a Committee of Creditors in the restructuring process.
