WazirX, a foremost cryptocurrency exchange in India, has recently been a target of a substantial cyberattack. To counter the negative effects of this incident, WazirX is launching a bounty program with efforts to freeze and recover the lost assets. The exchange has promptly taken measures such as lodging a criminal complaint and informing the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and CERT-In about the incident.
Following the cyberattack, the co-founder of WazirX, Nischal Shetty, has released a post explaining that the company is contacting over 500 other exchanges in order to block the digital addresses linked to the stolen funds. Shetty emphasized the importance of assistance from these exchanges as the stolen assets are being examined across numerous platforms.
Shetty further informed that WazirX plans to incentivize entities and individuals to help freeze or recover stolen assets, by means of a soon-to-be launched bounty program. This strategy is expected to aid the exchange in its ongoing efforts to trace the lost funds. Additionally, WazirX is in talks with professional groups that specialize in monitoring cryptocurrency transactions and who can supplement the recovery process.
Understanding the severity of the damage caused by this attack is now a central focus for WazirX’s team, as this information is critical in developing an efficient recovery plan. Conveying their thanks to the wider Web3 ecosystem for its support, WazirX emphasized the importance of cooperative effort to address the issue and uphold the ethos of Web3 communities.
In parallel to these steps, a partnership between WazirX, forensic professionals, and law enforcement agencies has been formed to identify and capture the responsible culprits. WazirX experienced massive losses in the breach, petalling approximately $235 million, just second to the recent $305 million loss by DMM exploit on May 31. The main suspect’s wallet still holds a considerable sum of over $104 million, as per crypto investigator ZachXBT’s revelation on a Telegram post.