WazirX Announces Bounty Program to Reclaim Lost Assets

As hackers tied to the North Korean Lazarus Group made away with $230 million from WazirX’s multisig cold wallet on July 18, the Indian centralized exchange (CEX) has announced a bug bounty program. It will hopefully allow the attacked platform to track the flow of assets as the hackers try to liquidate them and let WazirX seize them on other CEXs during liquidation efforts.

The exchange wrote on X, “We’re reaching out to 500+ exchanges to block the identified addresses. Many exchanges are cooperating with us, and we are actively working with them on additional resources to aid our recovery efforts.” It has also filed a police complaint and “reported the incident to the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and CERT-In.” These agencies will assist WazirX in its actions to recover the stolen funds.

Its immediate course of action includes “tracing the stolen funds, recovering customer assets, and conducting a deeper analysis of the cyber attack. We are collaborating with forensic experts and law enforcement agencies to identify and apprehend the perpetrators.”

WazirX’s co-founder Nischal Shetty chimed in on the development, stating on X, “We’re preparing a bounty program to help us freeze/recover the stolen assets.” He further thanked the support the exchange and its team have received as the attack made its way into the news cycle and appreciated the assistance coming to address the issue.

“This is an unprecedented attack on one of the largest crypto exchanges in India. It has negatively affected the entire Web3 ecosystem. I’m thankful to everyone from the ecosystem who are lending us their support to help resolve it.”

The WazirX hack is the second-biggest hack this year, following the $305 million catastrophe experienced by DMM in May. On-chain analysis shows WazirX hackers converting altcoins into ETH as they look to use mixers to cover their tracks and liquidate it for fiat when the coast is clear. The exchange is trying to remain on top of the fund flows through these activities and freeze the assets when they arrive on centralized platforms.