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CoinDCX employee arrested in connection with $44M crypto hack: Report

CoinDCX operator Neblio reportedly filed a complaint against software engineer Rahul Agarwal after discovering that his credentials had been compromised through his work laptop.

An employee of CoinDCX, a cryptocurrency exchange that was hacked for $44 million in mid-July, was arrested in India in connection with a security breach, according to multiple local reports.

Bengaluru City police detained CoinDCX software engineer Rahul Agarwal after hackers allegedly managed to compromise his login credentials to siphon the exchange’s assets, The Times of India reported on Thursday.

The arrest followed a complaint and internal investigation by CoinDCX operator Neblio Technologies, which determined that Agarwal’s credentials had been compromised via his work laptop, allowing unauthorized access to the company’s servers.

During questioning as his laptop was seized, Agarwal, 30, denied involvement in the crypto theft, but admitted to taking on part-time work for up to four private clients while still employed at CoinDCX.

“Sophisticated social engineering attack”
CoinDCX declined to confirm or deny Agarwal’s arrest to Cointelegraph, referring to an X post by CoinDCX co-founder and CEO Sumit Gupta, who told the public on Thursday that the exchange cannot engage with media amid an ongoing investigation.

“Based on our internal preliminary findings, this appears to be a sophisticated social engineering attack,” Gupta said in the post, adding that employees are often targeted in such attacks.