Inside CoinDCX’s $44M Heist: How Employee Fraud & Social Engineering Cracked India’s Crypto Giant

Another day, another crypto exchange learns the hard way that human firewalls are just as critical as smart contracts.

The breach breakdown: India’s CoinDCX got swindled for $44 million in a plot straight out of a cyber-noir thriller—insider collusion meets slick social engineering. No fancy zero-day exploits here, just old-school manipulation with a digital twist.

Why it stings: While regulators hyper-focus on ‘decentralization risks,’ centralized players keep proving they’re the weakest link. (Bonus irony: this happened in a market where the government still side-eyes crypto like it’s 2017.)

The silver lining? At least the thieves didn’t blame it on ‘anomalous yield farming strategies’ this time.

Social engineering attacks

Social engineering attacks continue to plague the crypto industry, often bypassing technical safeguards by targeting human behavior. Security researchers estimate that up to 98% of cyberattacks stem from some form of social engineering.

So, the CoinDCX breach is part of a broader trend observed in the past year.

Last year, US authorities revealed that North Korea-linked attackers used similar tactics to steal $305 million from Japan’s DMM Bitcoin exchange. Earlier this year, blockchain analyst ZachXBT also revealed that Coinbase users lose over $300 million annually to social engineering scams.

These cases highlight a pressing issue where even advanced cybersecurity measures can fail when employees are manipulated.