Korean Media: Upbit Exchange Reported Hacker Attack to Regulators 6 Hours Later

BlockBeats News, December 8th. According to the South Korean media Chosun Ilbo, Upbit, South Korea's largest cryptocurrency exchange, delayed reporting the incident to the Financial Supervisory Service by 6 hours after experiencing a hack.

Information obtained by South Korean National Assembly Government Committee member Kang Min-kuk from the Financial Supervisory Service revealed that Upbit detected abnormal transactions at 4:42 am on November 27th but did not report to the Financial Supervisory Service until 10:58 am. During this time, hackers stole over 1.04 trillion Solana ecosystem tokens in just 54 minutes, worth approximately 44.5 billion Korean won. Upbit held an emergency meeting 18 minutes after discovering the attack, suspended Solana network token deposits and withdrawals 27 minutes later, and completely halted all digital asset deposits and withdrawals at 8:55 am. However, current laws lack direct sanction clauses for virtual asset service providers in the event of a hack, making it difficult for the Financial Supervisory Service to impose significant penalties.

Upbit responded by stating that it has fully compensated user losses with its own funds and reported to the authorities immediately upon confirming the intrusion incident.