Crypto currency looting from a New Zealand-based crypto trading company continues unabated several days after it suffered a major hacking attack, according to data company Elementus.
Cryptopia, based in Christchurch, had announced on January 14 that it suffered a security breach that resulted in significant losses.
The exchange has not disclosed the value of the losses, the tokens and currencies affected or any measures to refund users.
But after decoding data stored on the Ethereum blockchain public database, Elementus said that the hack was different from previous attacks of this nature - and the amount stolen is much higher than originally thought.
According to data sourced by Elementus query engine, funds began moving out of Cryptopia's two core hot wallets on January 13, and within four days, its funds were drained.
The total value of the stolen Ether and ERC20 tokens was estimated at about $16 million.
Recently, in an update, Elementus said the hacker, after remaining dormant for few days, stole an additional 1,675 Ether (ETC) tokens from 17,000 wallets, worth about $181,000.
The wallets targeted include the 1,948 at-risk wallets that Elementus previously identified, some of which have continued to accrue funds as recently as Tuesday, and also more than 5,000 wallets that had already been drained in the initial hack. These wallets have since been topped up, presumably by unknowing Cryptopia users, the blog post said.
As Cryptopia failed to provide any more details about the hacking, Elementus says the exchange apparently has no longer control of their Ethereum wallets, while the hacker still does.
"The hacker has the private keys and can withdraw funds from any Cryptopia wallet at will," it claims.
It also noted that despite the hack, many Cryptopia users continue depositing funds into their Ethereum wallets. Elementus wonder why do people continue sending funds to Cryptopia despite there having been a very public security breach.
In just two hours since these breaches took place, many of the drained Ethereum wallets were topped up with more ether.
The New Zealand police and the High-Tech Crimes Unit were "jointly and actively investigating the matter as a major crime," but no more details were provided and the amount lost has not been made public so far.
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