Matt Damon-endorsed Crypto.com admits 400 users hit in hack

San Francisco, Jan 20 (IANS) The CEO of cryptocurrency exchange crypto.com, a cryptocurrency platform endorsed by famous Hollywood actor Matt Damon, has confirmed that hundreds of user accounts were hacked and their funds stolen.

CEO Kris Marszalek told the media that nearly 400 customer accounts had been compromised.

During the hack, Crypto.com paused its users’ ability to withdraw funds.

“We have a small number of users reporting suspicious activity on their accounts. We will be pausing withdrawals shortly, as our team is investigating. All funds are safe,” the company said in a tweet.

Marszalek also reiterated in a tweet that “no customer funds were lost.”

Blockchain security and analytics company Peckshield, however, tweeted that Crypto.com lost about $15 million (around 4,600 ethereum).

“The @cryptocom loss is about $15M with at least 4.6K ETHs and half of them are currently being washed via @TornadoCash,” Peckshield tweeted.

Tornado Cash is a platform that obscures cryptocurrency transactions so that these are harder to be tracked.

Marszalek claimed that Crypto.com’s 200 security professionals had created a “very robust” infrastructure and stated it had defence-in-depth.

Damon recently faced backlash for a Crypto.com commercial where he compares investing in crypto to great accomplishments achieved by mankind such as scaling Mount Everest or space exploration.

Earlier this month, reports surfaced that victims of a $200 million hack of popular cryptocurrency exchange BitMart were still waiting for their money even after over a month since the exchange was hacked.

According to reports, BitMart had promised a full reimbursement to the victims of the platform-wide $200 million hack.

Hackers stole various crypto tokens on December 4, after using a stolen privacy key to gain access to one of BitMart’s hot wallets.

–IANS

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