Grinex, a US-sanctioned cryptocurrency exchange registered in Kyrgyzstan, has said it has suspended operations after suffering a $13 million theft by “western special services” hackers.
Researchers from TRM, who confirmed the theft, determined the value of the stolen assets at $15 million after discovering about 70 drained addresses, which is about 16 times more than Grinex reported. Neither TRM nor another blockchain research firm, Elliptic, said how the attackers got past Grinex’s defenses. Grinex said it has been under near-constant attack attempts since it merged 16 months ago. According to him, the latest attacks targeted Russian users of the exchange.
Harms “financial sovereignty of Russia”.
“The digital footprints and nature of the attack suggest an unprecedented level of resources and technology available only to the structures of unfriendly states,” Grinex he said. “According to preliminary information, the attack was connected with the aim of directly harming the financial sovereignty of Russia.”
“Due to the attack, the Grinex exchange was forced to stop operating,” Grinex said. “All the available information has been transferred to the law enforcement agencies. An application has been submitted to the location of the infrastructure to initiate a criminal case.”
TRM he said TokenSpot, a second exchange based in Kyrgyzstan, was also breached. Two of the exchange’s addresses sent funds to the same consolidation address used by the affected Grinex-related wallets. Moreover, both exchanges went down on Wednesday, suggesting that they were hit by the same attacker.
TRM said TokenSpot is a front for the US Treasury Department’s Grinex sanctioned last year. The department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said Grinex, in turn, is a rebrand of Garantex, an exchange it sanctions. in 2022. The department went on to say that Ganantex “has directly assisted notorious ransomware actors and other cybercriminals by processing more than $100 million in transactions related to illegal activities since 2019.” Last year’s sanctions against Grinex came months after the TRM he said the exchange was a front for Gaantex.
