South Korean Cryptocurrency Exchange Loses $32M in Heist

A South Korean cryptocurrency exchange suffered a heist in which thieves made off with approximately $32 million in stolen assets.

On 20 June, Bithumb disclosed the hack in a statement published to its website:

We noticed that between last night and today early morning, about 35,000,000,000 KRW worth cryptocurrencies have been stolen. However, this loss will be compensated by Bithumb’s own reservoir, and all assets of our cust omers[sic] are securely saved in Bithumb’s cold wallet, hence all asset is completely safe and secured.

Bithumb said it’s in the process of reviewing the security mechanisms of its deposit/withdrawal service. It decided to halt its cryptocurrency withdrawal/deposit service and KRW service until that checkup is complete.

*All deposit and withdrawal service will be stopped to make sure the security. We will keep notice you of the restart of the service. We apologize for your inconvenience and thanks for your understanding.

— Bithumb (@BithumbOfficial) June 20, 2018

In the meantime, the exchange urged customers to not deposit any funds into their Bithumb wallet addresses.

Bithumb urgently ask our valuable customers not to deposit any fund into Bithumb wallet addresses for the time being.

▶ https://t.co/rnMGmKMBUf

— Bithumb (@BithumbOfficial) June 20, 2018

The hacking notice didn’t provide any details about what types of cryptocurrency the bad actors stole, how they infiltrated Bithumb’s systems and how they exfiltrated the stolen South Korean won, which amounted to $31.6 million.

It did say, however, that Bithumb will provide additional information about the incident at some point in the future.

This isn’t the first time Bithumb has suffered a security incident. In July of 2017, the cryptocurrency exchange confirmed a hacking campaign on its website. Bithumb didn’t disclose the total value of stolen assets at the time, but according to Bleeping Computer, some users (Read more...)