Coinspaid Crypto Payment Gateway Collides with Second Cyber Attack, Losing $7.5 Million
Estonian cryptocurrency payment gateway, Coinspaid, has fallen victim to its second cyber attack in the past six months. The security company Web3 Cyvers has reported unauthorized transactions amounting to approximately $7.5 million.
On January 6, the artificial intelligence system Cyvers recorded suspicious operations involving the display of digital assets worth $6.1 million, including Tether (USDT), Ether (ETH), USD Coin (USDC), and Coinspaid’s own cryptocurrency, CPD.
The attacker exchanged roughly 97 million CPD tokens, totaling about $368,000, and transferred the funds to external accounts and cryptocurrency exchanges such as MEXC, Whitebit, and Changenow. As a result of the attack, the value of CPD fell by 39.5% over the past 24 hours, reaching $0.0006, according to Coingecko.
Further analysis conducted by Cyvers revealed unauthorized transactions with BNB, amounting to over $1 million. This increased the total amount of stolen funds to almost $7.5 million.
Coinspaid, a leading Estonian cryptocurrency payment processor, has processed more than €19 billion in cryptocurrency transactions to date. The company has not yet responded to the incident.
This is not the first time Coinspaid has experienced a cyber attack. In July 2023, hackers stole over $37 billion from the platform. Coinspaid attributed the attack to the Lazarus group, allegedly supported by North Korea. The group used a fake interview to trick an employee, who unwittingly downloaded malicious code, providing the attackers with access to Coinspaid’s infrastructure.
The investigation report by Coinspaid accused the Lazarus group of attempting multiple penetrations of the platform since March 2023. When these attempts failed, the group employed “high-tech and active social engineering techniques” targeting individual employees rather than the company as a whole.
The Lazarus group has gained notoriety for its series of cryptocurrency cyber attacks in 2023, reportedly stealing at least $600 million in cryptocurrency, according to TRM Labs.