Hackers Rob South Korean Exchange of $13M in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Other Assets

South Korean cryptocurrency exchange GDAC has reported it lost nearly a quarter of its assets due to a hacking attack.

By Andrew Asmakov

Another crypto exchange got hacked. Image: Shutterstock

Hackers made off with roughly $13 million across a variety of cryptocurrencies after raiding the South Korean crypto exchange GDAC.

The incident occurred around on April 9, with the hackers targeting the exchange’s hot wallet.

The stolen assets represent roughly 23% of GDAC’s total holdings, and included 60.8 Bitcoin (BTC), 350.5 Ethereum (ETH), 10 million WEMIX tokens, and 220,000 in the dollar-pegged stablecoin USDT, the company said in a statement Monday.

WEMIX is the native token powering the eponymous crypto network.

The WEMIX team said that it is “closely monitoring the situation.” For detailed information and updates on the incident, WEMIX asked to refer to the official announcements made by GDAC.

Crypto exchanges use hot wallets to store a portion of their funds that are available for immediate withdrawals and trading activities. However, hot wallets also come with security risks. Contrary to cold wallets that keep assets offline, hot wallets are connected to the internet, meaning that if an exchange's hot wallet is compromised, it can result in significant financial losses for the exchange and its users.

GDAC CEO Seunghwan Han said that the exchange’s wallet system and related servers were suspended and blocked as soon as the incident was confirmed.

In response to the incident, the company said it is collaborating with both domestic and foreign crypto exchanges and issuers to prevent the stolen coins from being laundered and to recover them.

Additionally, GDAC has informed the Korea Internet & Security Agency, the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit, and the police of the incident.

Cryptocurrency theft surged last year, with a staggering $3.8 billion worth of assets stolen, according to blockchain analytics company Chainalysis.

This represents the most significant one-year loss in the history of cryptocurrencies, with state-backed North Korean hackers believed to be among the most active.