Poloniex Hack
REPORTED LOSS
$126M
What happened
Poloniex is a custodial cryptocurrency exchange. On 10 November 2023, attackers drained assets from hot wallets on Ethereum, Tron and Bitcoin; Poloniex said it would reimburse affected users.
Technical Root Cause
Security-firm analysis classified the incident as a likely private-key compromise of exchange hot wallets. Public sources do not establish how the keys were obtained, so the initial access method remains unknown.
Case & protocol details
Classification
Infrastructure / CeFi / Social Engineering
Protocol Type
CEX
Official Website
poloniex.com
Protocol Twitter/X
@Poloniex
How it happened
- Suspicious withdrawals began from Poloniex hot wallets across several networks.
- The attacker moved and swapped many of the assets through numerous addresses.
- Poloniex suspended wallet services, investigated, and reported freezing part of the associated assets.
Evidence & learning
Attack pattern
Compare incidents →Sources and on-chain records
- report Report twitter.com
- analysis Web Archive archive.li
- analysis Website reference twitter.com
- analysis News reference news.bitcoin.com
- analysis Website reference twitter.com
- analysis Announcement on Poloniex Hack Incident support.poloniex.com
- analysis Poloniex Incident Analysis certik.com
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