Just as South Korea is reportedly getting ready to regulate and legalize cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, news have emerged that Bithumb, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the country has been hacked. Data from 30,000 customers has been compromised and according to the BBC, the data is being used to fool users into letting thieves steal funds from their accounts.
In a separate report BraveNewCoin explains that Bithumb users were victims of "voice phishing," where someone phoned them up saying they worked for Bithumb and scammed them out of funds.
The breach is reported to have occurred in February, and is said to have involved an employee's home PC rather than computer servers at the firm's headquarters. Bithumb says it discovered the breach on June 29 and reported it to the authorities the next day. The exchange claims that the number of affected people represents approximately three percent of customers.
The cumulative amount of bitcoins traded at Bithumb last year were estimated at 2 trillion won (US$1.74 billion). They are one of the five largest bitcoin exchanges in the world and hosts over 13,000 bitcoins worth of trading volume daily, or roughly 10 percent of the global bitcoin trade.
Bithumb has promised initially to cover losses of up to 100,000 won (about $86) per customer, and will cover any remaining amount of money lost once it has been able to verify it.