OKEx, a sister site of OKCoin, is a major bitcoin trading platform in China with customers from all over the world. Recently, a customer of OKEx reported that their account was accessed from a German IP when BTC-ETC trading was carried through it. The hacker who accessed the account sold all the bitcoins of the user and cancelled all their pending orders. All of this occurred within 60 mins, which is quite concerning when considering the amount of investments that are held in these accounts.
Such incidents have resulted in the loss of 200 bitcoins, which are worth more than 5 million yuan and about 750,000 dollars. OKEx has slowly gained momentum, since its inception back in 2014. Other users also came forward and reported such attacks with a total of more than 600 bitcoins reported stolen. The combined value of these coins exceeds 20 million yuan (about 3 million dollars).
OKEx released a statement that the hack had nothing to do with the platform, and encouraged the victims of the hack should contact police on their own.
“OKEx was NOT hacked. All client assets are safe and sound,” said Lennix Lai, Director of Financial Market at OKEx and OKCoin."
Following the backlash, the company guided its customers to turn on two-factor authentication on their accounts, as it is one of the best methods of protecting one’s online accounts. According to CoinMarketCap, OKEx is ranked at 46th in the list of most popular exchange by volume. In comparison, OKCoin, its sister company, is ranked at 16th.
Since cryptocurrency has been banned in China last month, the victims are unable to lodge a report with the police. Chinese police seem aloof of such trading and consider cryptocurrency trading a pyramid scheme. Many are refusing to handle the case.
As a result of this incident and how it is being handled, bitcoin traders, are now paying special attention to the security of their accounts in order to avoid such “hacks” in the future. This incident sheds light on the vulnerability of online trading; if you are not careful, you may lose all your investment within hours.