WazirX hacker launders $30M in 8 days, still holds $115M in ETH

The hacker group behind India’s WazirX exploit is not stopping to launder stolen Ether (ETH) while investors hope to receive their funds back. In their latest move, the hacker moved 10,000 ETH (worth approximately $23 million) in the last 24 hours.

The clash between WarizX and Liminal is getting more intense as Liminal, the multiparty computation wallet provider doubled down on blaming the hacked exchange for the $230 million exploit. The allegations come after forensic analysis that showed no evidence of the attack originating from its web infrastructure.

???? The WazirX attacker won’t stop laundering stolen $ETH!

In the past 24 hours, the attacker moved 10K $ETH ($23.3M), including:
• sent another 5K $ETH to #TornadoCash
• moved another 5K $ETH to a new address for further laundering.

???? Total laundered: 12.6K $ETH ($30.13M) in… https://t.co/hqIoMLq8s9 pic.twitter.com/HONUuhnqCB

— Spot On Chain (@spotonchain) September 10, 2024

WazirX hacker moves $23M in Ether

Data shared by Spot On Chain highlighted that the WazirX hacker moved 10K Ether to multiple sources for laundering. The hacker sent 5K ETH to Tornado Cash, a privacy tool that allows users to mask their crypto transactions. They also moved another 5K ETH to a new wallet making the stolen funds even harder to trace.

The exploiter reportedly laundered more than 12.6K ETH ($30.13 million) in the last 8 days. The wallet still holds $49.1K Ether ($115 million).

Ether’s price has also suffered a setback since the WazirX hack. ETH price dropped by 13% in the last 30 days. The largest altcoin by market cap is trading at an average price of $2,341 as of press time.

In the July 2024 breach, hackers drained $100 million in Shiba Inu (SHIB) and $52 million in Ether (ETH) from WazirX’s multi-sig wallet. The heist had a profound impact on the exchange’s reputation and reserves as the stolen assets made up 45% of its total reserves.

WazirX is reportedly attempting to recover the stolen funds while they’ve also filed for a restructuring process to handle the fallout and settle liabilities with affected customers.

Blame game escalates

As reported earlier, WazirX claimed it was not responsible for the hack when it published the results of a Mandiant audit. Since then, both parties have passed the blame to each other.

Liminal hired audit firm Grant Thornton to conduct a deep review of their web apps following the July hack. This included checking of UI, frontend, and backend.

The initial findings uncovered a mismatch in the data shared by Liminal and WazirX. This suggests the breach occurred either in the exchange’s system or Liminal’s front end. However, further probing cleared Liminal of any vulnerability.

The forensic investigation concluded that there was “no evidence” of compromise in Liminal’s transaction workflow. WazirX is yet to respond to Liminal’s latest claims, but the ongoing blame game shows no signs of stopping.