Hackers steal and destroy millions from Iran’s largest crypto exchange

Iran’s largest crypto exchange, Nobitex, said on Wednesday that it had been hacked and that the funds had been drained from its hot wallet.

In a statement on its website translated by TechCrunch, Nobitex said that it had detected unauthorized access to its infrastructure and hot portfolio, in which the company stores part of its customers’ cryptocurrency. The company said it was investigating the incident and that its website and application would not be available in the foreseeable future.

Public files Show that the pirates stole at least $ 90 million from the company’s assets on several transactions. The Elliptic blockchain analysis company said the The pirates “burned” the stolen funds By sending the crypto to inaccessible wallets, effectively removing traffic money.

Nobitex has more than 10 million customers, according to An archived copy The Nobitex website last week.

The pro-Israeli piracy group Predatory Sparrow (also known in Farsi under the name of “Gonjeshke Darande”) took the credit of the cyber attack. In A post on xThe group said that they had targeted Nobitex for pretending to be funded terrorism for the Iranian regime and escape international sanctions.

One day earlier, the hacking group has also claimed the responsibility of hacking on the Iranian bank Sepah Building generalized breakdowns in automatic ticket distributors across the country.

The news of the cyber attacks comes as Israel and Iran attack each other. It is not clear who is behind the predatory Sparrow, which appeared for the first time in 2021, but the hacking group Iranian organizations targeted with destructive cyber attacks in the pastAnd seems largely aligned with Israeli interests.

Iranian News Outlet Irib said on Tuesday that in the middle of the current military conflict, Israel had “launched a massive cyber war [Iran’s] Digital infrastructure to disrupt the service provision process. »»