A recent major security breach at Atomic Wallet, resulting in a staggering $100 million loss in June, has led to a class action lawsuit initiated by a group of disgruntled crypto investors.
The legal action, reported by German business media agency bne IntelliNews on August 21, has garnered attention for its involvement of high-net worth investors primarily from Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States.
The lawsuit’s coordination is spearheaded by German lawyer Max Gutbrod, along with Boris Feldman, a co-founder of Moscow-based legaltech firm Destra Legal.
Notably, Gutbrod boasts a history of over two decades at Baker & McKenzie in Moscow. According to reports, the legal duo is representing around 50 clients who collectively lost approximately $12 million following the breach that unfolded just two months ago.
Gutbrod stated, “We are working on recovering the assets for our clients and we will be filing a class action against Atomic Wallet. They didn’t give our clients any information about the hack or go to the police to report it.”
Atomic Wallet, recognized as a noncustodial cryptocurrency wallet, experienced a massive breach in mid-June 2023, affecting over 5,500 crypto accounts on its platform.
Though initial accusations were aimed at North Korean cybercrime group Lazarus Group, which has a history of multimillion-dollar crypto thefts, subsequent claims suggest another possible perpetrator.
Boris Feldman, in his allegations, introduced the notion of a Ukrainian hacking group being behind the breach. His legal firm, Destra, has collaborated with blockchain analytics experts at Match Systems who have been conducting their own investigation on behalf of the affected investors.
Feldman revealed, “They have found traces of involvement of Ukrainian hacker groups.”
Notably, Atomic Wallet has remained relatively tight-lipped about the specifics of the breach. While it outlined four “probable” causes, including user device viruses, infrastructure breaches, man-in-the-middle attacks, or malware code injections, the company refrained from offering detailed explanations.
The wallet provider continued to stress that the impact was minimal, affecting less than 0.1% of its application users.
Surprisingly, despite the breach, Atomic Wallet reportedly continued its normal operations. The cryptocurrency wallet company has not yet issued a response to requests for comment.
