Grinex, a US-sanctioned cryptocurrency exchange registered in Kyrgyzstan, said it will halt operations after experiencing a $13 million heist carried out by hackers from “Western special services.”
Investigators at TRM, which has confirmed the theft, estimated the value of the stolen assets at $15 million after discovering approximately 70 empty addresses, about 16 more than Grinex reported. Neither TRM nor blockchain research firm Elliptic have said how the attackers bypassed Grinex’s defenses. Grinex said it has been under constant attack attempts since its incorporation 16 months ago. The latest attacks, he said, targeted Russian users of the exchange.
Damaging “Russia’s financial sovereignty”
“The fingerprints and nature of the attack indicate an unprecedented level of resources and technology available exclusively to hostile state structures,” Grinex. saying. “According to preliminary data, the attack was coordinated with the aim of causing direct damage to Russia’s financial sovereignty.”
“Due to the attack, the Grinex exchange is forced to suspend operations,” Grinex continued. “All available information was transmitted to law enforcement agencies. A request was submitted to the location of the infrastructure to initiate a criminal case.”
TRM saying that TokenSpot, a second exchange based in Kyrgyzstan, was also breached. Two of the exchange’s addresses sent funds to the same consolidation address used by the affected Grinex-linked wallets. What’s more, both exchanges became inoperable on Wednesday, suggesting that they were attacked by the same attacker.
TRM said TokenSpot was a front for Grinex, which the US Treasury Department sanctioned last year. The department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said Grinex, in turn, was a rebrand of Garantex, an exchange it had sanctioned. in 2022. The department said then that Ganantex had “directly facilitated notorious ransomware actors and other cybercriminals by processing more than $100 million in transactions linked to illicit activities since 2019.” Last year’s sanctions against Grinex came a few months after the TRM. saying that the exchange was likely a front for Ganantex.
