On Wednesday, roughly 35 billion Korean won (around $31 million) in cryptocurrency was stolen by hackers from the South Korea-based exchange Bithumb.
Mahi Sall, Advisor, Fintech-Bank Partnerships, Payments and Financial Inclusivity
January 25th, 2023
Mahi Sall is the CEO & Founder of FinXpair, a Berlin-based strategic advisory boutique firm focu[...]
Bithumb $31 Million Crypto Exchange Hack: What We Know (And Don’t)
Coindesk | Wolfie Zhao | June 20, 2018
On Wednesday, roughly 35 billion Korean won (around $31 million) in cryptocurrency was stolen by hackers from the South Korea-based exchange Bithumb.
Although the breach may not be as severe as the $530 million hack of the Coincheck exchange earlier this year, the fact that Bithumb now ranks as the sixth biggest trading venue in the world still marks it as a notable, and worrying, incident.
While more details about the heist have surfaced in the hours following the event's confirmation, providing a glimpse into Bithumb's internal operations, some important questions about the hack still remain unanswered.
Here's what we know about the hack so far, and some details we still don't.
What we know
XRP compromised
While Bithumb has not yet disclosed full details of the stolen coins, news emerged following the hack that XRP, the native token of the XRP ledger and the world's third-largest cryptocurrency, has been targeted, according to a report from CoinDesk Korea.
Based on data from CoinMarketCap, Bithumb accounted for 10 percent of the global trading volume of XRP over the last 24 hours, with a total of $32 million-worth changing hands.
Bithumb has so far not responded to CoinDesk's request for comment.
IT improvement failed
While Bithumb officially confirmed the breach early Wednesday morning local time, it appears that security issues were already drawing attention from the exchange at least several days ago.
According to a follow-up report from CoinDesk Korea, Bithumb conducted a security enhancement checkup on June 16, just days before the confirmed hack.
The exchange explained at the time:
"Recently, the number of unauthorized access attempts has increased. As such, an urgent server checkup was conducted to strengthen the security of all system."
At the same time, Bithumb also started moving users' assets to a cold wallet to store cryptocurrencies in a more secure offline environment.
The CoinDesk Korea report indicated that the hack comes at a time when Bithumb is spending 10 billion won, or around $9 million dollars annually on security measures. Another report from Yonhap further suggests that Bithumb beefed up its security measures by implementing so-called "5.5.7 regulations" last month.
Under this requirement, at least 5 percent of a financial institution's staff should be IT specialists. Among those, 5 percent should focus on information security, while at least 7 percent of the firm's total budget should be on information security.
See: The growing cost of cybersecurity
The report from Yonhap stated that 21 percent of Bithumb's employees are technology specialists as of May, and 10 percent of those are responsible for information security. Further, about eight percent of the annual spending budget is used for data protection activities.
Although Bithumb appears to have fulfilled the 5.5.7 requirements, the report said the fact that it has 300 employees means it may not be able to cope with the increasing amount of trading volume and user numbers on its platform.
Government weighs in
An hour before Bithumb confirmed the hack on its website and official Twitter account, the exchange reported the case to the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA), a government organization that supervises internet and cybersecurity issues in the country.
An official from KISA said a dedicated analysis team is currently in the process of investigation the hack. As of press time, the agency has not yet disclosed any details from its investigation so far.
Bithumb to refund users
Immediately after announcing the hack, Bithumb confirmed it will pay back victims using its own reserves.
Industry experts later weighed in, including bitcoin pioneer Charlie Shrem, who praised the move despite the unwelcome incident.
"Bithumb hacked for $30 million but covering all losses. Out industry is getting better and stronger," he tweeted.
In addition, litecoin creator Charlie Lee also commented that he believes the smart move is to "keep on exchange coins that you are actively trading. It's best to withdraw right after trading."
This is not the first time that Bithumb was reportedly hacked. As previously reported by CoinDesk, the platform was compromised last year with as many as 30,000 users impacted.
At that time, Bithumb later announced that it would repay each victim with 100,000 Korean won each, an amount worth about $85.
Bitcoin price dips by $200
According to data from CoinDesk, the price of bitcoin dropped by nearly $200 to a daily low so far of $6,561 an hour after Bithumb initially published the statement. As of press time, the price had bounced back to $6,640.
In addition, as Bithumb has so far only suspended asset deposits and withdrawals, trading activity on the exchange actually appears to be increasing since the news broke. Based on data from CoinMarketCap, 24-hour trading volume was initially seen at around $350 million at the time of the news and later climbed to $380 million around noon local time on Wednesday.
Check out: Prices Aside, Crypto’s Tech Stack Is Steadily Improving
As of press time, Bithumb still remains the sixth largest platform globally.
What we don't know
Extent of the breach
It appears that XRP is one of the assets stolen in the hack, yet it's still unclear at the moment if other assets have been taken and in what quantities. In addition, it's also not clear the number of users on Bithumb that have been impacted.
In its announcement, Bithumb refrained disclosing these details, adding that it may disclose the hacked tokens today. It has not made any statement on that at press time.
Further, it's not publicly known at this time which wallet addresses the hacked cryptocurrencies have been sent to, or whether any have been liquidated or not.
Currently, there are over 37 cryptocurrency assets on Bithumb that are available for trading against the Korean won. Among them, EOS and TRON together account for over half of the total trading volume on Bithumb, at 31 and 22 percent, respectively.
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