Bithumb checks for customer data leaks after employee system breach
South Korea's second-largest exchange said its trading systems and customer funds were unaffected, as financial regulators reported cyberattacks on 16 domestic firms.
Key takeaways
- 1Bithumb discovered an unauthorized intrusion into its internal employee mobile system on 27 October.
- 2Exposed data includes employee names, work email addresses, and mobile phone numbers.
- 3Bithumb confirmed that customer funds were not accessed because core trading systems are separated.
- 4South Korea Financial Supervisory Service Governor Lee Chan-jin said 16 financial firms face cyberattacks.
South Korea's second-largest cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb reported an internal security breach on 27 October after an intruder gained access to its employee mobile network, prompting an investigation into whether customer personal information was exposed.
The exchange discovered the intrusion on Tuesday and notified both the Korea Internet & Security Agency and the Personal Information Protection Commission on the same day. According to CoinPedia, the unauthorized entry occurred through Daou Office, a third-party mobile groupware platform that Bithumb staff use for internal work and messaging. The incident exposed staff details, including employee names, work email addresses, and mobile phone numbers.
Bithumb told South Korean news agency Yonhap that it is analysing internal system records to determine whether member data was included in the breach. The company said its internal administrative network is isolated from its digital asset trading platform, so customer funds and cryptocurrency holdings were not accessed or impacted. Bithumb has not specified whether customer deposit or withdrawal services were affected by the security review.
The exchange is the second-largest digital asset trading venue in South Korea by trading volume behind Upbit. The company previously faced scrutiny over its operational safeguards in February after an internal system error mistakenly credited users with 620,000 Bitcoin, worth more than $40 billion at the time, rather than 620,000 South Korean won. Following that incident, Chief Executive Lee Jae-won blamed the error on weak internal controls, saying the exchange was acutely aware of deficiencies in its internal system control.
The incident at Bithumb comes alongside a wider series of security breaches across South Korea's financial sector. Financial Supervisory Service Governor Lee Chan-jin said during a meeting with bank holding company heads on Wednesday that at least 16 financial institutions in the country had faced cyberattacks since 14 October. He told executives that major financial investment firms experienced overall hacking incidents on Tuesday.
Among the other affected institutions, brokerage firm Daishin Securities said personal and credit information for 38,490 customers was leaked following an external attack first detected on 17 October. Daishin reported identifying more than 60,000 harmful requests over a 10-day period, exposing customer names, home addresses, email addresses, and account details. Asset manager Mirae Asset Global Investments, which manages $461 billion in assets, also reported blocking unauthorized external access to its web systems during the same period.
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