The Brazilian cryptocurrency exchange Mercado Bitcoin stated that after detecting a security incident in one of its systems on November 2nd, it temporarily suspended cryptocurrency deposits and withdrawals.
In an official statement, the exchange stated that it discovered the issue early on Monday morning and quickly brought it under control, assuring customers that their funds were not affected and that no data leakage occurred.
The company has not disclosed which system was compromised, nor has it provided an estimate of the assets involved. However, the company confirmed that its security team is investigating the incident, tracking the assets, and coordinating with relevant departments.
Mercado Bitcoin indicates that suspending recharges and withdrawals is a preventive measure aimed at protecting users during the investigation period.
The announcement did not specify when these services would be restored, nor did it mention whether other functions on the platform, including cryptocurrency trading, were affected.
According to the announcement on November 2nd, this security issue was discovered within one of the exchange's systems, but the company did not provide a technical explanation for how the incident occurred.
Its countermeasures include controlling the affected systems and temporarily restricting the flow of funds through recharges and withdrawals.
Mercado Bitcoin insists that customers have not been harmed, and their personal information has not been leaked. The statement does not identify any affected cryptocurrencies, blockchain networks, or wallet addresses.
Although the company confirmed that its team is tracking the assets, the exchange did not state whether any cryptocurrencies were transferred without authorization, nor did it indicate whether the investigation had uncovered any suspicious transactions.
The company has not disclosed the number of accounts that may be affected, nor the specific systems that are under investigation.
For customers, the most immediate limitation at present is the inability to transfer cryptocurrencies in or out of the platform. The exchange has not yet announced a timeline for restoring these services, and users are still waiting for further operational updates.
As the investigation continues, the company's security team is working in collaboration with relevant authorities. However, the company has not specified which institutions are involved, nor has it disclosed whether any funds have been frozen.
Mercado Bitcoin indicates that as more information becomes available, progress will be updated regularly through official communication channels.
A week before this incident occurred, there were already several security vulnerabilities and emergency restrictions in the cryptocurrency industry.
On October 29th, Binance encountered a major security vulnerability that affected approximately $6.3 billion in encrypted assets, prompting the exchange to temporarily suspend withdrawals during the investigation of unauthorized transactions.
According to previous reports by crypto.news, preliminary investigations by Binance indicate that the attacker may have gained access to an engineer's laptop and obtained internal infrastructure permissions necessary for processing withdrawals.
The exchange stated that there is no evidence to suggest that the wallet private keys have been leaked, but attackers were still able to initiate unauthorized transfers through the compromised environment.
Subsequently, Binance collaborated with blockchain security companies, stablecoin issuers, and law enforcement agencies to track the stolen cryptocurrencies. As of October 30th, the company stated that approximately $3 billion in affected assets had been frozen on the blockchain.
The exchange pledged to use user-oriented security asset funds and company funds to compensate customers for their losses, allocating over $6.34 billion to replenish the affected assets.
As of November 1st, Binance indicates that approximately 95% of the stolen assets have been replaced, and after completing additional security checks, the process of gradually restoring withdrawals has begun.
This attack also prompted Binance to take emergency measures outside of its own platform.
After the decentralized lending protocol Aave had deposits of 60 million USDT in wallets associated with attackers Binance and lent out 19,762 WETH, it temporarily restricted multiple markets until security controls took effect.
The guardian of Aave has frozen the new deposits and loans in 175 V3 reserves and 117 V4 reserves, however, users can still continue to withdraw cash, repay loans, and clear their positions.
After implementing additional risk controls on October 30th, the protocol reopened the V3 and V4 markets. Aave indicates that its smart contracts were not compromised in this incident.
According to other reports, Bitcoin payment processor BTCPay Server warned that unauthorized withdrawals occurred from hot wallets associated with some installed instances, and issued an emergency security alert on November 1st.
This open-source payment platform initially advised operators to shut down their servers, while developers were investigating reports of funds being transferred away.
According to the security update of the project, subsequent investigations have narrowed down the suspected attack vectors to installations running version 2.4.1 or earlier.
On November 2nd, during the update, BTCPay Server did not disclose the total value of the stolen cryptocurrencies or the number of affected installations.
The project requires affected operators to provide event details and server logs to assist in the investigation. At the same time, some hosting service providers, including LunaNode, have also taken preventive measures by shutting down some installed instances.
