Follow
As of recently, the largest bitcoin exchange in South Korea was attacked by hackers. There were valuable cryptocurrency funds stolen which might amount to billions of won. The breached company was Bithumb which is one of the five largest exchanges of digital currency in the world.
One Bithumb Customer Claims Missing Cryptocurrency Funds Valued at 1.2 Billion Won
Around 10% of the worldwide Bitcoin trade takes place through Bithumb. The organization is also a pillar in the ether market at the same time. However, last week its security suffered a major collapse under a hacker attack. The aftermath constituted a loss of billions of won that were withdrawn from the accounts of customers. Statements started to flood the local media by confessing how clients had millions of won disappear in an instant from their accounts.
The company mobilized quickly and surveyed its clients in the search for a concrete number of the suffered losses. It turns out that there were around 100 investors who were directly impacted by the recent cyber attack. One person only stated that his or her cryptocurrency funds are missing 1.2 billion won.
Hackers Resorted to Voice Phishing to Gain Access to Digital Wallets
Hackers reportedly came into possession of personal details pertaining to 31,800 Bithumb website members. These stolen data contained email addresses, names, and phone numbers. This number of victims accounts for around 3% of Bithumb database of clients.
Bithumb discovered the security breach on June 29 and the next morning reported the attack to the police. Since then, around 100 customers notified the National Police Agency of being damaged by this hacking operation.
Despite all these filed complaints, the organization claims that hackers gained no direct access to their funds. That’s because the breach was operated through an employee’s personal computer. This gadget had no connection to exchange’s servers, digital wallets, and internal network. Therefore, attackers could retrieve only clients’ personal information. From here to stealing, they resorted to voice phishing by impersonating Bthumb executives and contacting customers to find out their One-Time Password.
Image source: 1
