South Korea's largest cryptocurrency exchange, Upbit, was reported to be the target of hacking attempts on over 159,000 occasions during the first half of 2023.
As reported by a South Korean local news agency, according to data provided by Dunamu, the firm that owns and operates Upbit, to Rep. Park Seong-jung of the National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information, Broadcasting, and Communications Committee, there were a total of 159,061 attempted cyber infringements on Upbit in the first half of the year.
This represents more than double the number of attempted infringements in the first half of the previous year (73,249 cases).
The report indicates a substantial surge in hacking attempts on Upbit, with a 117% increase from the first half of 2022 and an astounding 1,800% surge from the same period in 2020.
The progression of hacking attempts on Upbit has been notable, escalating from 8,356 cases in the latter half of 2020 to 34,687 in the first half of 2021, followed by 63,912 in the latter half of 2021 and 73,249 in the initial half of 2022. This figure continued to rise, culminating in 87,242 cases.
Notably, Upbit suffered approximately 58 billion won in damages from a hacking attack in 2019.
A Dunamu official said:
"After the hacking incident in 2019, we took various measures to prevent recurrence, such as distributing hot wallets and operating them, and to date, not a single cyber breach has occurred."
Dunamu has disclosed its strategy of maintaining over 70% of assets in cold wallets to fortify security. Moreover, it employs multiple structures for hot wallets rather than relying on a single framework.
Hot wallets are typically more susceptible to hacking as their private keys are stored online, in contrast to cold
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