Hackers Target South Korean Exchange Upbit in 2023 Surge

Hackers targeted the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Upbit more than 159,000 times in the first half of 2023, according to its operating company.

Dunamu, the company that owns and administers Upbit, reported the figures to South Korean Representative Park Seong-jung of the People Power Party, according to a report by the Yonhap News Agency on October 9.

The report indicates a staggering 1,800% increase from the first half of 2020 to the first half of 2022. According to CoinGecko, Upbit is one of South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, with a 24-hour trading volume of approximately $1.2 billion.

Additional significant exchanges include Bithumb, Coinone, and Gopax. To combat phishing attempts and bolster security, according to Dunamu, Upbit has increased the proportion of funds held in cold wallets to 70 percent.

Additionally, Upbit enhanced the security of funds held in flash wallets. Because their private keys are stored online, hot wallets are more susceptible to hacking than cold wallets, whose keys are held offline on external hard drives and USBs.

In 2019, Upside suffered a $50 million loss. Since then, however, Upbit has not experienced a single security lapse, according to a spokesperson for Dunamu who spoke with Yonhap.

“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.“

Late in September, however, Upbit was forced to suspend Aptos token services after the platform failed to recognize a fake token, “ClaimAPTGift.com,” which reached 400,000 Aptos wallets.

Seong-jung acknowledged that cryptocurrency breaches have increased globally, but he urged the South Korean government to take additional measures.

“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.”

“The Ministry of Science and ICT’s role in managing and supervising them is ambiguous,” Seong-jung continued. In September, crypto exchanges were the target of a series of attacks.

In September, one of CoinEx’s private keys was compromised, resulting in a $70 million breach at the Hong Kong-based exchange.

The company has stated that affected users will receive reimbursement for any lost funds. Huobi Global’s HTX exchange lost $7.9 million in a separate attack on September 24.