The South Korean government has been criticized for not doing enough to help prevent hacking at cryptocurrency exchanges. Data obtained by the regulators show that three crypto exchanges were hacked, with damage of almost $1 billion, after having gone through an inspection by the government. Meanwhile, one of the nation’s largest crypto exchanges, Upbit, has denied the rumor that it was also hacked.
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Crypto Hacking Incidents
The South Korean Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Information and Communication, the Korea Communications Commission (KCC), and the National Police Agency have submitted data on hacking incidents of cryptocurrency exchanges to the National Assembly, local media reported on Monday.
Min Kyung-wook.
Min Kyung-wook, a member of the National Assembly’s Science and Technology Information and Communications Commission, revealed that the data shows seven hacking incidents. They resulted in the loss of 128.8 billion won (~US$115 million) in cryptocurrencies, the Korea Daily reported.
The government has conducted a security check on 31 crypto exchanges, the news outlet detailed, adding that 10 of them were inspected between September and December last year while the other 21 from January to March this year.
The regulators advised the exchanges to take immediate action to improve a number of areas such as the “lack of information security system such as firewall, lack of system access control, [and] insufficient malicious code prevention.”
Government Criticized
Out of the total damage of 128.8 billion won, 110 billion won (~$98.5 million) in cryptocurrencies were stolen from three crypto exchanges. These three “were hacked even after receiving government security checks,” the publication noted. “The government has been criticized for not being able to take effective measures against the exchange security problem.”
The first of the three
