Hackers steal $30 million from top Seoul bitcoin exchange

Bithumb holds cryptocurrencies worth 6.36 trillion won, including coins worth 416 billion won of its own, as of the end of 2017, it said in an audit report released in April.

Major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, and Bitcoin Cash, which successfully picked up some momentum throughout June 17 to 19, ended their corrective rallies and have fallen by around 1 percent over the past few hours.

The company said the cyberattack took place between Tuesday night and early Wednesday.

The hack marks the second incident in less than two weeks in South Korea.

Bithumb is now the world's sixth largest cryptocurrency exchange by CoinMarketCap data with a trading volume of more than $415 million over the last 24 hours.

Earlier this month, CCN reported that CoinRail, a top 10 cryptocurrency exchange in South Korea, was hacked.

It is also worth noting that South Korean authorities have been investigating cryptocurrency exchanges to check compliance with tax laws. Coinrail lost US$28 million (~RM112 million) in the attack.

In the aftermath of the hack, the company immediately blocked user withdrawals to prevent the hacker from stealing more funds.

Following the attack, Bithumb has stored all assets in "safe cold wallets", according to Reuters. But, if Bithumb had stored a significant chunk of its holdings in a hot wallet, the breach could have gotten a lot worse.

That said, one strong takeaway, once again, is that people who buy crypto should store their tokens in their own private wallet (ideally with a hardware key for access) not on an exchange where they could be pinched by an attacker.

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