Bitget Crypto Exchange Hacked, $387.5 Million Stolen in Suspected North Korean Attack

Bitget, a prominent cryptocurrency exchange, detected suspicious activity in its systems on September 24. Its security team noticed unauthorized transfers from some of the company's hot wallets, which are online wallets used for active trading and withdrawals.

The initial loss estimates were over $350 million. The attack was sophisticated, involving the spoofing of transaction requests that tricked the exchange's own approval systems into moving funds to the attackers.

On September 24, Bitget's security system flagged abnormal fund outflows at 18:31 UTC. The company quickly confirmed a large-scale breach and began investigating the scope of the theft.

By September 25, Bitget officially disclosed that $351.6 million had been stolen. The company paused all customer withdrawals to prevent further losses and stated that North Korean hackers were the prime suspects, based on the techniques used.

Further analysis revealed that the attackers had compromised a critical backend system, allowing them to spoof transaction data and bypass internal controls. As investigations continued, Bitget revised the estimated losses upward to $387.5 million after including assets such as Zcash and TRON that were previously omitted.

During this period, Bitget reassured customers that its bitcoin-backed protection fund would cover the losses, and emphasized that private keys had not been stolen. Meanwhile, some wallet addresses linked to the attackers were frozen, but stolen assets, including XRP, were seen moving through other wallets.

Bitget has suspended all withdrawals while investigations and asset tracing continue. The company maintains it will cover customer losses using its protection fund.

North Korean hackers remain the leading suspects, and the incident has pushed North Korea's alleged crypto thefts past $1 billion for the year. Some of the stolen funds are still in motion, making asset recovery efforts ongoing.

Customers are waiting to see when withdrawals will resume and whether Bitget's protection fund will fully cover the stolen assets. Investigators are also tracking the movement of stolen cryptocurrencies in hopes of recovering some of the funds. The outcome may influence security standards across the crypto exchange sector.