South Korea's major cryptocurrency exchange, Upbit, has disclosed in a recent that it experienced over 159,000 hacking attempts during the first half of 2023.
The figure represents a significant increase of 117% compared to the same period in 2022, according to data provided by Upbit's parent company, Dunamu. The was shared with South Korean Representative Park Seong-jung of the People Power Party. The statistics also reveal a staggering 1,800% surge in hacking attempts compared to the first half of 2020.
Upbit, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in South Korea, boasts a 24-hour trading volume of approximately $1.2 billion. Other major exchanges in the country include Bithumb, Coinone, and Gopax.
To fortify its security measures, has increased the proportion of funds held in cold wallets to 70%. Cold wallets, which store private keys offline, are considered more secure than hot wallets, which store keys online and are more vulnerable to hacks.
While Upbit suffered a $50 million exploit in 2019, the exchange has successfully prevented any security breaches since then, as confirmed by a Dunamu spokesperson.
"After the hacking incident in 2019, we took various measures to prevent recurrence, such as distributing hot wallets and operating them, and to date, not a single cyber breach has occurred," the report stated.
Notably, various crypto exchanges have fallen victim to attacks in September, including Hong Kong-based , which suffered a $70 million hack, and Huobi Global's HTX exchange, which lost $7.9 million in an exploit.
Representative Park Seong-jung acknowledged the increasing frequency of cryptorcurrency hacks and called upon the South Korean government to take substantial measures to address this issue:
“The Ministry of Science and Technology must conduct large-scale whitewashing mock tests and investigate information security conditions in preparation for cyber attacks against virtual asset exchanges where hacking attempts are frequent," Park said.
Despite these efforts, Upbit faced a recent incident in late September when it failed to detect a fake token, "ClaimAPTGift.com," in 400,000 Aptos wallets, leading to the suspension of Aptos token services.
