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Upbit Exchange Was Attacked 160 Thousand Times! In the first half of 2023, hackers attacked South Korea’s cryptocurrency exchange Upbit more than 159,000 times. Dunamu, which owns and operates Upbit, reported these figures to South Korean Representative Park Seong-jung. Also, Yonhap News Agency published this in a report on October 9.
The report indicates an increase of 117% compared to the first half of 2022 and a staggering increase of 1,800% compared to the first half of 2020. According to CoinGecko, Upbit is one of South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges with approximately $1.2 billion in 24-hour trading volume. Other major exchanges include Bithumb, Coinone, and Gopax.
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To take precautions against hacker attacks and strengthen security, Dunamu stated that it increased the ratio of funds held in Upbit’s cold wallets to 70%. Upbit also increased security measures for funds held in hot wallets.
Upbit Exchange ‘s subjected to a $50 million attack in 2019
Hackers could hack hot wallets more frequently than cold wallets. In cold wallets, users stored private keys offline on external hard drives and USBs. Upbit was subjected to a $50 million attack in 2019. However, since then Upbit has not experienced a single security breach, according to Yonhap. A Dunamu spokesperson:
“After the hacking incident in 2019, we took various measures to prevent repeated incidents like business by distributing our hot wallets and so far there has not been a single cyber breach. “
However, Upbit had to stop Aptos token services in late September because the platform did not recognize a fake token called “ClaimAPTGift.com“, and this fake token reached 400,000 Aptos. Seong-jung acknowledged that crypto hacks have generally increased, but called on the South Korean government to take more precautions:
“The Ministry of Science and Technology should conduct large-scale whitening trials and examine information security conditions in preparation for cyber attacks on virtual asset exchanges where frequent hacking.” Also, Seong-Jung added:
“The role of the Ministry of Science and Technology in administration and supervision is unclear. “
Cointelegraph reached out to Upbit for a comment but didn’t immediately receive a response. On the other hand, hackers attacked crypto exchanges with a series of attacks in September. The Hong Kong-based exchange CoinEx was attacked with $70 million in September following the compromise of a private key. The company stated that it would compensate for the lost funds. In a separate attack, Huobi Global’s HTX exchange lost $7.9 million in an attack on September 24.
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