Hackers have reportedly made away with cryptocurrencies worth $30 million from Bithumb, South Korea's leading exchange, according to reports from a blog update. The exchange states that due to the hack, deposits and withdrawals will be temporarily suspended until further notice.
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Bithumb’s blog post reads "Due to security issues; we are changing our system regarding deposits of cryptocurrency. All of our customers should stop depositing cryptocurrency until we notified that it is safe to deposit cryptocurrency."
The Hack
In its announcement, Bithumb didn’t disclose the exact details of the coins that were affected in the hack and in what quantities. We also don’t know the exact cause of the breach, but a local news outlet[2] is reporting that investigators from South Korea's National Police Agency have begun a formal investigation into the case.
In an update shared on Twitter, Bithumb had stated that it would compensate affected users. Though the original tweet from Bithumb has since been deleted, the information was also sent to users via email in a move to clear doubts and uncertainty.
Twitter user RedDragon___[3] posted an email screenshot which reads, “We noticed that between last night and today early morning, about 35,000,000,000 KRW worth cryptocurrencies have been stolen. However, this loss will be compensated by Bithumb’s own reservoir, and all assets of our customers are securely saved in Bithumb's cold wallet, hence all asset is completely safe and secured."
Bithumb also reported[4] that assets are being transferred to a cold wallet while they “build up the security system and upgrade DB. Starting from 15:00 pm(KST), we will restart our services.”
Mitigating the Damage
Bithumb had managed to preempt what it interpreted as an imminent attack on its server by moving a large
