One of the top cryptocurrency marketplaces in Nigeria, Patricia, recently announced it suffered a serious security breach that put its financial assets at risk. The event has forced the business to act quickly to protect its user base and strengthen its security system.
Withdrawals have been suspended as a result of this unanticipated cyberattack as part of an ongoing internal restructuring to strengthen the platform’s security features. Patricia’s retail trading app has stopped allowing user withdrawals since last week, citing a security vulnerability in a customer email.
Surprisingly, the incident occurred in January of last year, and $2 million was stolen. Coming from a firm that has kept a good reputation among its users, especially after sponsoring Big Brother Naija season 6 in 2021, Patricia kept this a secret.
The business is reportedly trying to curb excessive withdrawals with the current withdrawal block after a lot of panicked clients hurried to withdraw their money from Patricia and transfer it to other cryptocurrency exchanges.
The implication of an excessive withdrawal is that the company would probably experience cash flow issues as a result of its inability to handle the withdrawal demands. There are claims that the company’s custody wallet had a 75 BTC deficit. Patricia chose not to respond to this. Instead, Patricia informed clients through email that internal restructuring is currently taking place.
The business stated that only its retail application, Patricia, was compromised, and it declared its intention to file a lawsuit.
“Patricia Personal, Patricia OTC Desk, and Patricia Business are the three divisions of our services. We were the victims of a breach not long ago. This incident only affected Patricia Personal, the retail trading application; BTC and Naira assets were exposed. We reassure the public that all assets belonging to our clients and merchants are protected, and every other cryptocurrency balance is unaffected.”
Patricia worked with law enforcement to identify those responsible for the breach, with a breakthrough coming from the compromise of Naira assets, the majority of which was reportedly linked to a specific person, even though the precise amount of the affected assets are still unknown.
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