South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Upbit has been targeted by hackers on greater than 159,000 events in the primary half of 2023, in keeping with its working agency.
The figures had been reported by Dunamu — the firm that owns and operates Upbit — to South Korean Representative Park Seong-jung of the People Power Party, according to an Oct. 9 report by the South Korea-based Yonhap News Agency.
The report exhibits a 117% improve from the primary half of 2022 and a whopping 1,800% improve from the primary half of 2020.
Upbit is one in all South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, with a 24-hour buying and selling quantity of round $1.2 billion, in keeping with CoinGecko. Other main exchanges embrace Bithumb, Coinone and Gopax.
To counter hacking makes an attempt and strengthen safety, Dunamu stated Upbit elevated the proportion of funds it holds in chilly wallets to 70%. Upbit additionally upped its safety measures for funds held in sizzling wallets.
Hot wallets are typically hacked extra usually than chilly wallets as a result of their non-public keys are saved on-line, in contrast to the previous, the place the keys are saved offline on exterior onerous drives and USBs.
Upbit suffered a $50 million exploit in 2019. But since then, Upbit hasn’t suffered a single safety breach, a Dunamu spokesperson informed 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.“
However, Upbit had to halt Aptos token services in late September after the platform failed to recognize a fake token, “ClaimAPTGift.com,” which reached 400,000 Aptos (APT) wallets.
1/ Crypto Deposits Security Thread
Today’s Upbit incident highlights a vital facet that’s usually missed – the safety of crypto deposits. While lots is mentioned round non-public key administration & withdrawals safety, deposits have an analogous assault floor. ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/5NEAyJB63N
— Nass Eddequiouaq (@nassyweazy) September 25, 2023
Seong-jung acknowledged that cryptocurrency hacks have increased throughout the board however referred to as on the South Korean authorities to take extra motion:
“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 role of the Ministry of Science and ICT in managing and supervising them is ambiguous,” Seong-jung added.
Cointelegraph reached out to Upbit for remark however didn’t obtain a right away response.
Related: CoinEx exchange drained of $27M worth of crypto in suspected hack
Meanwhile, crypto exchanges have been targeted in a string of assaults in September.
Hong Kong-based exchange CoinEx suffered a $70 million hack in September after one of many agency’s non-public keys was compromised. The agency acknowledged that affected customers might be compensated for any misplaced funds.
In a separate assault, Huobi Global’s HTX exchange lost $7.9 million in a Sept. 24 exploit.
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