Coins.ph hackers charged after stealing PHP 340 million

The two individuals have fled the country before they were charged.

Photo from Coins.ph

Hackers were previously consultants for Coins.ph

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed charges against two Russians who hacked Coins.ph's system and stole 12.2 million XRP valued at PHP 340.745 million, reports said.

However, Vladimir Evgenevich Avdeev and Sergey Yaschuck, who previously worked as consultants for the company, managed to escape the country before this happened.

The DOJ said the charges were filed before the Taguig City Regional Trial Court for violation of Republic Act No. 10175 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012.

According to the department, Coins.ph is engaged in remittance, transmittal of money, foreign currency exchange, and other money transactions.

The company lodged a complaint after its security team uncovered that millions of XRP had vanished from a Bitgo hot wallet. They further determined that the perpetrator possessed a deep understanding of its network infrastructure, secure access key protocols, and server systems, based on suspicious system logins recorded.

It was discovered that the stolen funds had been moved to an external wallet address by an unknown malicious actor.

The security team found that Yaschuck's account was involved.

Also discovered were suspicious logins in its "OpenVPN" where employees can access the internal network remotely. Avdeev previously managed the company’s administrator account for this.

In an attempt to confuse investigators, Avdeev and Yaschuck also tried to launder the stolen funds through various cryptocurrency services.

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Via: ABS-CBN; Inquirer.net