WazirX Increases White Hat Recovery Reward to $23 Million After $230M Hack

WazirX has increased its White Hat recovery reward by 10%, which is now worth $23 million.

This move follows a severe cyber attack that resulted in the theft of over $230 million from a multi-signature wallet.

WazirX Increases Bounty Reward

As a way to recover funds, the exchange announced a Bounty Program, calling on global participation from white hat hackers, cybersecurity specialists, and blockchain analysts. Initially, they set the bounty at 5%, amounting to $11.5 million. Later, based on popular blockchain investigator ZachXBT’s feedback, they increased it to 10%.

Based on @zachxbt‘s feedback, we have increased the White Hat Recovery reward to 10%, i.e., up to $23 Million.

We invite white hat hackers, blockchain forensics experts, and cybersecurity professionals from around the world to join this critical mission and protect the integrity…

— WazirX: India Ka Bitcoin Exchange (@WazirXIndia) July 21, 2024

WazirX has devised two specific bounties. The first one, “Track and Freeze,” offers up to $10,000 USDT for information that will allow them to freeze the stolen funds. The second one is White Hat recovery, which is 10% of the recovered amount for those able to recover the stolen funds.

The bounty program will run for three months from the date of announcement. However, an extension or reduction is possible based on the results and requirements.

Notably, after the hack, WazirX temporarily halted trading to address the difficulties of maintaining a 1:1 ratio between tokens and assets.

WazirX’s Founder Says it Was Not Phishing Attack

WazirX’s founder, Nischal Shetty has also clarified on X that the recent hack was not caused by a phishing attack. He explained that the incident involved three signatures from different WazirX devices with separate hardware wallets, each located in different places, and a fourth from Liminal, their custody provider.

Based on preliminary analysis, there were no signs of compromise in WazirX devices, and an external forensic audit is underway to confirm that.

Shetty further explained that the three wallets’ hardware keys were not compromised since the attack required four different signatures from four locations and two parties, WazirX and Liminal. The latter’s team confirmed they had not been breached.

WazirX has since filed a police report to the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) and contacted over 500 exchanges to block the identified addresses.

Furthermore, the platform is conducting a security review and a complete forensic data assessment to address the security issues and return to normal operations. Users have also been assured that the withdrawals will return shortly.

In a recent tweet, Shetty commended the team’s efforts in resolving the issue, saying that it will take time to resolve the issue, but they will not stop.