{"id":396018,"date":"2018-01-28T18:37:09","date_gmt":"2018-01-28T18:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=396018"},"modified":"2018-01-28T18:37:09","modified_gmt":"2018-01-28T18:37:09","slug":"coincheck-promises-46bn-yen-refund-cryptocurrency-theft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2018\/01\/coincheck-promises-46bn-yen-refund-cryptocurrency-theft\/","title":{"rendered":"Coincheck promises 46bn yen refund after cryptocurrency theft"},"content":{"rendered":"
One of Japan’s largest digital currency exchanges has said it will refund most of the $534m (\u00a3380m) worth of virtual assets lost in a hacking attack.<\/p>\n
Coincheck has promised to use its own funds to reimburse more than 46bn yen ($423m) to customers who lost their NEM cryptocurrency coins on Friday.<\/p>\n
The Tokyo-based company suspended trading after detecting “unauthorised access” of its digital exchange.<\/p>\n
Some 260,000 customers are said to be affected by the reported theft.<\/p>\n
Coincheck said on Sunday that the amount it has promised to return covers nearly 90% of the 58bn yen worth of NEM coins lost in the attack.<\/p>\n
After the breach was discovered on Friday, the company froze deposits and withdrawals for all cryptocurrencies except Bitcoin as it assessed its losses in NEM, a lesser-known currency.<\/p>\n
The stolen Coincheck assets were said to be kept in a “hot wallet”, which is a part of the exchange connected to the internet, as opposed to a “cold wallet”, where funds are stored securely offline.<\/p>\n
The company says it has the digital address of where the assets were sent.<\/p>\n
As many as 10,000 businesses in Japan are said to accept cryptocurrencies.<\/p>\n
In 2014 MtGox, another Tokyo exchange, collapsed after admitting that $400m had been stolen from its network.<\/p>\n
What do we know about the hack?<\/strong><\/p>\n Hackers broke in at 02:57 on Friday (17:57 GMT Thursday), the company saidin a statement, but the breach was not discovered until 11:25, nearly eight and a half hours later.<\/p>\n Company chief operating officer Yusuke Otsuka said 523m NEMs had been sent from Coincheck’s NEM address during the breach.<\/p>\n “It’s worth 58bn yen based on the calculation at the rate when detected,” he told reporters at the Tokyo Stock Exchange.<\/p>\n