Huobi Recovers $8M in Stolen Crypto

Cryptocurrency exchange Huobi Global has recovered $8 million worth of Ether (ETH) that was stolen by a hacker in September. The funds were restored after Huobi contacted the hacker and negotiated an agreement for the stolen assets to be returned.

The recovery was announced on Saturday by Justin Sun, an investor in Huobi Global and advisor to the HTX token. On Twitter, Sun stated that the hacker had “fully returned all funds” as promised under the deal. Huobi also paid the hacker a bonus bounty of 250 ETH, which Sun described as a “white hat” reward.

The hack originally occurred on September 25th and targeted one of Huobi’s hot wallets, draining it of 5,000 ETH. At the time, Sun maintained that this was a relatively small loss compared to Huobi’s total holdings of $3 billion in assets.

After the hack, Huobi offered to pay the hacker a 5% bounty on the stolen ETH if it was returned within a week. The company said it would contact law enforcement if the hacker rejected the offer.

Cryptocurrency firms have often resorted to directly negotiating with hackers rather than involving authorities. In several past cases, exchanges reached agreements where the majority of stolen funds were returned and a bug bounty was paid, avoiding legal action.

While hacks on exchanges persist, the types targeted have varied. According to a July report from Immunefi, decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms saw a 63% increase in hacks compared to last year, losing $228 million across 79 attacks. Centralized exchanges like Huobi suffered only 2 reported attacks totaling $37 million in losses.

#Cryptocurrency #Hacking #Ethereum #Exchange

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