Hackers Steal $31 Million from South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb

Just weeks after Korean exchange Coinrail was hacked, the Bithumb crypto exchange was hacked, crooks stole over $30 million in cryptocurrency.

It has happened again, for the second time in a year, the cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb has been hacked.

The South Korean cryptocurrency exchange confirmed that hackers stole 35 billion won ($31.6 million) worth of cryptocurrency between June 19 and June 20.

In response to the incident, the exchange moved all funds to cold wallets and temporarily suspended the deposits and blocked user withdrawals.

At the time of writing, Bithumb did not reveal any details about the security breach, but it announced that it will cover losses.

“We have noticed that between the last night and today 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 of our assets are securedly saved in Bithumb’s cold wallet.” reads the security advisory published by Bithumb.

“However, due to implementation enhancement as well as security check on deposit / withdrawal services, cryptocurrency deposit / withdrawal and KRW withdrawal service will be halted for time being and services are thoroughly reviewed.”

Bithumb is one of the top 10 most popular cryptocurrency exchanges, experts noticed that Bitcoin price fell 3 percent following the announcement of the incident.

This is the second time in a year that Bithumb suffers a security breach, in July 2017 hackers have stolen more than $1 Million in Bitcoin and Ether cryptocurrencies from the accounts of several users of the exchange.

Experts argued that the overall funds stolen at the time were greater than initially thought.

A few weeks ago, another South Korean exchange, Coinrail, announced a cyberheist. Attackers stole over $40M worth of ICO tokens that were maintained in the servers of the exchange.

In December, the South Korea cryptocurrency exchange Youbit shut down after a being hacked two times in a few months.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Bithumb, cryptocurrency)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.