Upbit cryptocurrency exchange hacked, crooks stole $48.5 million worth of ETH

Another South Korean cryptocurrency exchange was hacked, this time the victim is Upbit that lost $48.5 million in cryptocurrency.

The South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Upbit disclosed a security breach, the company told its customers that hackers have stolen $48.5 million in crypto-currency from its hot wallet. 

The company has halted its operations on Wednesday, customers were not able to operate with their wallets.

According to the data breach notification published by the company, hackers stole 342,000 in Ethereum (ETH), approximately $48.5 million at the time of writing, that were stored in the main hot wallet of the exchange.

“At 1:06 PM on November 27, 2019, 342,000 ETH (approximately 58 billion won) were transferred from the Upbeat Ethereum Hot Wallet to an unknown wallet. Unknown wallet address is 0xa09871AEadF4994Ca12f5c0b6056BBd1d343c029” reads the data breach notification published by the company.

At the time of writing, the wallet controlled by the attackers has 40 transactions for a total amount of 342,000 ETH worth of cryptocurrency.

Lee Seok-woo, chief executive of Doo-myeon that operates the Upbit exchange, declared that the company will completely cover the stolen funds and it will restore normal operations in a couple of weeks.

In response to the attack, the exchange has moved all its funds in the Hot Wallet to the Cold Wallet.

The exchange manager who handles cryptocurrency is also asking customers to prevent deposits from the Ethereum address that was involved in the security breach. The company recommends users to report any suspicious activity to the Upbit Customer Center.

Some Reddit users speculate that the incident could be not true and that the operators have made an exit scam.

On Reddit, some users have questioned the authenticity of the hack claim, which is no surprise given how often exchanges will say they have suffered a cyberattack, only to perform an exit scam. 

In the past, other South Korean crypto-currency exchanges suffered security breaches, in June 2018 hackers stole $31 Million from Bithumb and in a separate incident crooks stole over $40M worth of ICO tokens from Coinrail. In December 2017, South Korea cryptocurrency exchange Youbit shuts down after it was hacked two times in a few months.

In March 2019, Hackers stole $19 Million from Bithumb cryptocurrency exchange, the same exchange was already hacked in July 2017, when hackers stole over $1 Million worth Bitcoin and Ether stolen.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – Upbit exchange, hacking)

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