Key takeaways:
- According to Upbit’s running company, hackers have targeted the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange more than 159,000 times in the first half of 2023.
- There has been a staggering 1,800% increase since the first half of 2020 and a growth of 117% since the first half of 2022.
According to Upbit’s running company, hackers have targeted the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange more than 159,000 times in the first half of 2023.
According to a report published on October 9 by the South Korean Yonhap News Agency, the numbers were sent to South Korean Representative Park Seong-jung of the People Power Party by Dunamu, the company that owns and runs Upbit.
According to the data, there has been a staggering 1,800% increase since the first half of 2020 and a growth of 117% since the first half of 2022.
According to CoinGecko, Upbit is one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges in South Korea, with a $1.2 billion 24-hour trading volume. Bithumb, Coinone, and Gopax are a few further significant exchanges.
Dunamu claimed that Upbit boosted the percentage of assets it keeps in cold wallets to 70% to fend off hacking attempts and bolster security. Additionally, Upbit enhanced its security protocols for money stored in hot wallets.
The former are more susceptible to hacking because hot wallets store their private keys online instead of cold wallets, which store them offline on external hard drives and USBs.
In 2019, a $50 million exploit affected Upbit. However, a Dunamu official told Yonhap that Upbit hasn’t experienced a single security compromise since then.
“After the hacking incident in 2019, we took various measures to prevent recurrence, such as distributing hot wallets and operating them, and to date, not a single cyber breach has occurred.”
But in late September, Upbit was forced to stop offering Aptos tokens after the platform failed to detect a phony token called “ClaimAPTGift.com,” reaching 400,000 Aptos wallets.
Seong-jung acknowledged the rise in cryptocurrency hacks but urged the South Korean government to respond more forcefully:
“The Ministry of Science and Technology must conduct large-scale whitewashing mock tests and investigate information security conditions in preparation for cyber attacks against virtual asset exchanges where hacking attempts are frequent.”
Meanwhile, several hacks in September targeted cryptocurrency exchanges.
In September, a $70 million attack occurred at the Hong Kong-based exchange CoinEx due to a compromised private key. According to the business, any lost money would be reimbursed to the impacted users. Separately, a September 24 exploit cost Huobi Global’s HTX exchange $7.9 million.
