Hackers laundered 40% of 500 million stolen NEM

According to a cybersecurity consultancy, the hackers who were involved in the theft of $ 500 million NEM last January to Coincheck, have already managed to launder 40%.

The Asian news site Nikkei has published that a Tokyo-based consultancy called L Plus estimates that 200 million XEMs have been laundered, equal to $ 79.3 million in the market today.

Something unusual is to see how the Metropolitan Police of Tokyo assigns 100 agents to investigate the hacking of the exchange, which has already found suspicious activities in the weeks leading up to the robbery.

Apparently, the hack was given in the following way. First, they accessed the server through an email account of an employee that was hacked already, then they could access the private key of the wallet of the platform, where they could obtain 500 million XEM. Which in January were worth $ 530 million but today is only valued at $ 198, hence 40%.

After the stolen funds are converted into Bitcoin, as a form of laundering, they will be converted into fiat currency. This according to a source close to the investigation that held talks with the local Nikkei. What is not known for sure is how much money has been collected.

At the moment the identities of the perpetrators are unknown, but the attack does have certain similarities to the cyber attacks that were related to hackers sponsored by North Korea.

From this, Japanese financial regulators have strengthened the security measures on exchanges, in order to improve the response to hacking. While the licensed trading platforms have announced that they will form a self-regulatory body, which if approved by the government, will have power over its members.

This hard blow has left Coincheck without being able to operate during all this time, but it is expected that this week it will resume its normal activities after a review of its security systems carried out by the government.

In the end, this story has a happy ending, as it will not only help Coincheck and other exchanges improve the security of their platforms but also the 260,000 users who were affected, will receive compensation in fiat currency, the which is equivalent to twice the exchange rate of today.