Coincheck returns the stolen XEM to those affected by the hack

As announced some days ago, Coincheck, the Japanese exchange, will begin today to return the NEM (XEM) stolen by the hack that occurred on January 28, 2018, where hackers stole 523 million XEM and about 260,000 people were affected.

In the page of Coincheck they indicate the way in which they are going to refund the stolen funds and they facilitate the following data:

• Total amount to return 523 million XEM
• Payment date 03/12/2018
• The replenishment of funds will be made in Japanese Yen (JPY)
• For each subtracted NEM, 88,549 JPY will be reimbursed (which today equals 0.82 dollars, more than twice the amount of each NEM at the time of writing this article. The NEM is valued at 0.38 dollars According to coinmarketcap.)
• Clients who have not completed the identity verification on the date of reimbursement will be compensated when they complete the verification.
• Yen income will be made in order, for this reason the income may be delayed.

In the coincheck home you can read the following message where they apologize for what happened:

“We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience and concern for our customers, business partners and parties involved in the unauthorized NEM withdrawals made in our exchange.

We will solemnly take the requests for business improvements we receive from the Financial Services Agency, and will work hard to resume service through serious efforts.

In addition, we are currently suspending some functions, including the new registration.

Humbly, thank you for your understanding. “

Resumption of withdrawals and sales of some cryptocurrencies

They have also announced the resumption of withdrawals and sales of some cryptocurrencies sequentially:

• withdrawals and sales of coins may be made, but no purchases or deposits are made.
• Coins available for withdrawals: ETH, ETC, XRP, LTC, BCH, BTC
• coins available for sale ETH, ETC, XRP, LTC, BCH, (sale of BTC has been exempt from temporary suspension)

They also report the problems that can be had when trying to connect to the platform these days, since there are many problems that can arise due to a large number of connections.

If there are any complications, they can cancel the services without prior notice to increase security and avoid other problems.

Or that the withdrawal and sale of coins will continue to be temporarily suspended, as will the new registrations, until they confirm that there is no security problem.

The steps followed by Coincheck after the hack

After what happened, Coincheck asked for the collaboration of 5 expert companies in cyber attacks, cybersecurity, such as information leakage, forensic / malware analysis, etc., to carry out a study of what happened.

The results obtained from this study were that the attack was made through a malware that infected the company’s equipment and allowed stealing the keys of the company.

Coincheck has endeavored to repair the damage and return to normal activity, for which they have made the following improvements:

• Reconstruction of the network.
• Redesign and reconstruction of the server.
• Security improvement of the terminal.
• Security monitoring
• Verification of deposit and refund of virtual currencies.