CoinDCX Launches Recovery Effort with Bounty for White Hat Hackers

CoinDCX's White Hat Recovery Bounty Program

Indian cryptocurrency exchange CoinDCX has announced a recovery effort after experiencing a $44 million exploit, with the firm offering a bounty for white hat hackers to help retrieve the stolen funds. The hack targeted CoinDCX's internal accounts used for liquidity provision, resulting in the theft of $44 million worth of cryptocurrency. Despite this breach, user funds on the platform remained unaffected.

CEO Emphasizes Identification of Attackers

In response to the exploit, CoinDCX CEO Sumit Gupta emphasized the importance of identifying and catching the attackers to prevent similar incidents in the future. Gupta confirmed that the exposure was from the exchange's own reserves, which have been absorbed through the corporate treasury. The recovery bounty program offers white hat hackers up to 25% of any recovered funds for assisting in tracing and retrieving the stolen assets.

Renewed Wave of Exchange Exploits

The CoinDCX hack comes amidst a renewed wave of exploits targeting centralized cryptocurrency exchanges. Recent incidents have highlighted vulnerabilities in the security posture of these platforms, with over $500 million lost due to wallet access breaches in Q2 2024. Security experts are urging exchanges to adopt preemptive measures like real-time wallet monitoring and offchain transaction validation to mitigate the risk of future hacks.

Enhancing Security Posture

The launch of CoinDCX's White Hat Recovery Bounty Program is part of the exchange's broader strategy to enhance security measures and regain user trust. By engaging ethical hackers and the Web3 community in the recovery efforts, CoinDCX aims to recover a significant portion of the stolen funds. The exchange has resumed operations and reopened Indian Rupee withdrawals, signaling a commitment to transparency and proactive security measures to prevent future exploits.