CoinEx Hack

TOTAL LOST $55.0M
High #118 All-Time Private Key Compromised (Unknown Method) / Access Control arbitrum bitcoin bitcoincash bsc dagger ethereum kadena polygon solana stellar tron xrp

Summarize with AI

ChatGPT Perplexity Claude Grok
Affected Chain arbitrum 12 chains affected
Recovered - No recovery reported
All-Time Rank #118 By amount stolen
Protocol Type CEX Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

CoinEx's hot wallets were exploited via private key compromise, resulting in a massive loss of 52,847,077 USD across 9 chains.

Details of the Exploit

The CoinEx crypto trading platform experienced a significant exploit on Sep 12, 2023, in which attackers compromised the private keys of their hot wallets. The attackers managed to steal funds across 9 different chains, transferring them to their own addresses. As of Sep 13, 2023, the stolen funds remain in the attacker's addresses.

Chain specific losses:

- Ethereum

- 18,324,848 USD worth 11,377.3 ETH

- Binance Smart Chain

- 6,286,018 USD worth 29,552.05 BNB

- Polygon

- 288,072 USD worth 559,908 MATIC

- Tron

- 11,119,353 USD worth 137,127,867 TRX

- Solana

- 2,496,432 USD worth 135,602 SOL

- Bitcoin

- 6,082,389 USD worth 231 BTC

- Bitcoin Cash

- 447,574 USD worth 2200 BCH

- Ripple

- 6,113,201 USD worth 12,625,364 XRP

- XDAG

- 1,689,190 USD worth 229,291,486.34 XDAG

Block Data Reference

Ethereum:

Attackers:

https://etherscan.io/address/0xCC1AE485…cCE454

https://etherscan.io/address/0x8bf8cd7F…8cC3dE

https://etherscan.io/address/0x483D8827…EFf584

Funds Holders as of Sep 13, 2023:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x2118e443…4DB297

https://etherscan.io/address/0x40cBe758…F7E37E

https://etherscan.io/address/0x1A61Df13…195f62

Funds Draining Transactions:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x741b7071…fd5af5

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9e8d4d98…230eaa

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x8d19b103…abddb0

Binance Smart Chain:

Attacker:

https://bscscan.com/address/0x6953704e…258A20

Funds Holders as of Sep 13, 2023:

https://bscscan.com/address/0xC844F717…2b984F

Funds Drain Transaction:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x3be3502b…fd480d

Polygon:

Attacker:

https://polygonscan.com/address/0x4515bE00…9B95e9

Funds Holder:

https://polygonscan.com/address/0xD4342E02…CDBE2e

Funds Draining Transaction:

https://polygonscan.com/tx/0x0cce3401…6a9a7d

Tron:

Attacker:

https://tronscan.org/#/address/TPFUjxQzG88Vwynrpj2W61ZAkQ9W2QYgAQ

Funds Holder:

https://tronscan.org/#/address/TP75t6owoqXxskLq6FB2R37PymNTmohq9L

Funds Draining Transaction:

https://tronscan.org/#/transaction/07e5045c5b324c3a82b9fd71df6e182d90d7ab2c847300e328d15b38a57107c8

Solana:

Attacker:

https://solscan.io/address/G3udanrxk8stVe8Se2zXmJ3QwU8GSFJMn28mTfn8t1kq

Funds Draining Transaction:

https://solscan.io/tx/3zaFcH36bE8vnbFqLgHkMyqm59qttxp7X37aGtict3jDjLtdU125Mgphac7uCCbr1NT3E3momiYBjdraHCCs5Zmr

Bitcoin:

Attacker:

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1BHNb9UJy4cWFB5wywZkTVgoNB4JbFmswH

Funds Draining Transaction:

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/e7484e5a559c7141813db5f27f22340265d695d6d75e9cf08f6937981134b7d0

Bitcoin Cash:

Attacker:

https://www.blockchain.com/bch/address/qrgxyhj8rzl4l7fgauu6q6vtu2grct4jeyrnaq2s75

Funds Transfer Transaction:

https://www.blockchain.com/bch/tx/f492ff6b9720a50a8422e154b26dd0f44325490dd0648584030bc1b0357d3e1f

Ripple:

Attacker:

https://xrpscan.com/account/rpQxVcjVF2fC23r3xKyJS53jw8d5SRhZQf

Funds Transfer Transaction:

https://xrpscan.com/tx/E6E00EC1F49E335FE698ED9CCBC97BAC8F8BE01DB5FA87CF39C7CF9471856C3B

XDAG:

Attacker:

https://explorer.xdag.io/block/15VY3MadZvLpXhjzFXwCUmtZcHszju6L9

Funds Transfer Transaction:

https://explorer.xdag.io/block/9b502a255e8be26d01c89203a2ddb1168d34d34eb5b25b26d4c26c5b3f69e962

This is classified as a Access Control Attacks . Compare similar hacks →

Incident Report

Protocol / Project CoinEx
Date of Incident
Affected Chain(s) arbitrum bitcoin bitcoincash bsc dagger ethereum kadena polygon solana stellar tron xrp
Attack Technique Private Key Compromised (Unknown Method) / Access Control
Classification Infrastructure / Other
Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type CEX
Official Website www.coinex.com/en/
Protocol Twitter/X @coinexcom?s=20
Team Anonymous
Source Code Unverified

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories
Medium of Exchange BNB Chain Ecosystem
Protocol Links
GitHub Telegram

What the Attacker Needed to Succeed

Understanding the prerequisites for this type of attack helps auditors identify protocols that are most at risk and helps developers build better defenses.

Technical Knowledge Operational-security tradecraft (phishing, malware, leaked seed phrases, or insider access) to obtain treasury signing authority
Capital Required Minimal capital - only enough to cover Solana network fees while draining the compromised accounts
On-Chain Access Valid signing authority over the compromised stake accounts and treasury wallets, allowing direct transfer of funds or stake authorization
Target Reconnaissance Identification of CoinEx's high-value treasury accounts and the authority / multisig structure controlling them
Execution Speed Speed to drain the compromised accounts before the team detects the breach and revokes signing authority or freezes the assets
Obfuscation Plan A strategy to launder and move stolen funds - typically through mixers, cross-chain bridges, or decentralized DEX swaps to resist tracing

What Auditors Should Check

Could this have been caught in audit? Hard to catch — private key / OpSec failures are outside smart contract audit scope

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to CoinEx, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (September 2023).

  • Verify all logic paths related to Private Key Compromised (Unknown Method) / Access Control are guarded by proper access controls and input validation - see the Access Control Attacks attack class for patterns
  • Review privileged functions (owner, admin, governance) for potential abuse vectors - centralization risks should be documented and bounded with timelocks or multi-sigs

Master these auditing techniques with hands-on labs and real exploit scenarios in the Smart Contract Hacking course.

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Related Attack Classes

The technique used in this hack maps to these vulnerability classes in our security curriculum:

See all Access Control Attacks examples →

Access Control Attacks

Sources & References

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