Bithumb, South Korea’s second-largest crypto exchange by volume, said on Wednesday that an outsider broke into the internal mobile system its employees use to work and message each other, and that personal information was taken, CoinDesk reports.
The exchange found the intrusion on Tuesday and reported it to the Korea Internet & Security Agency and the Personal Information Protection Commission, according to Korean media.
Bithumb says the system runs separately from its trading platform, so “customer virtual assets cannot be accessed through this breach.” No crypto losses had been reported by Asian afternoon hours.
It told Yonhap it is still analysing the exact scope, including whether member information was involved. The report does not say whose personal information was taken.
The Financial Supervisory Service was also assessing Daishin Securities, which said personal and credit data on 38,490 customers leaked, and Mirae Asset Global Investments, which said it blocked abnormal access and that investor information was unaffected. FSS governor Lee Chan-jin said earlier this month that attacks had hit 16 South Korean financial firms as of 14 October.
Bithumb’s record is not clean. In February it mistakenly credited customers with 620,000 BTC, worth more than $40 billion then, instead of 620,000 won. Its chief executive blamed weak internal controls.
Still unanswered are how many people’s data was exposed, whether any of it is customer data, and whether deposits or withdrawals were affected. The claim that assets are out of reach is Bithumb’s own, and nobody outside the company has tested it.
