According to Wu Blockchain, since the beginning of 2023, South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Upbit, has faced 159,061 platform attack incidents. This data is compiled by Dunamu, the company that owns and operates Upbit. Interestingly, the report from Dunamu sent to Park Seong-jung, the representative of South Korea’s People Power Party, shows that the number of attack incidents in the first half of this year increased by 117% compared to the first half of 2022 (73,249 incidents) and surged by a staggering 1,800% compared to the first half of 2020 (8,356 incidents).
Furthermore, the Upbit operating company noted that hot wallets tend to be a favored target of hackers because private keys are connected online. Unlike cold wallets, where these keys are stored offline on hard drives and external USBs, making real-time transactions more challenging, they offer higher security.
Faced with this record number of hacks, Upbit has quickly increased its asset reserve ratio in cold wallets to 70% and enhanced security measures for funds stored in hot wallets to counteract attacks and ensure network security.
In addition, Dunamu stated that Upbit has been continuously improving its platform security since the hack that caused approximately 60 billion won in damage (equivalent to 50 million USD) and sent shockwaves through the global cryptocurrency market at the end of 2019. They emphasized that Upbit has not experienced any security breaches since then.
“Following the 2019 hack, we have implemented various measures to prevent similar incidents from recurring, such as distributing assets to multiple locations and the operation method of hot wallets, and to this day, there have been no security violations.”
However, at the end of September 2023, Upbit had to halt deposits and withdrawals of Aptos (APT) tokens due to an error made by the exchange management team in recognizing a counterfeit APT coin as genuine and allowing users to deposit it on the platform, subsequently requiring users to return the funds.
South Korea has long been known for its cryptocurrency investments. According to information revealed by the Korean Tax Agency, a total of 1,432 individuals and companies have declared their overseas cryptocurrency assets, with a total value of 98.5 billion USD.