cryptocurrencies are more mainstream in south korea than pretty much anywhere else in the world. so this is interesting...
Posted by
x (aka dmuck)
Dec 19 '17, 14:41
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"A cryptocurrency exchange in South Korea collapsed on Tuesday after it suffered a second cyberattack in eight months and lost a large amount of its digital-currency reserves.
Yapian, the company that operates a Seoul-based exchange called Youbit, suspended digital-currency trading and filed for bankruptcy after its systems were hacked in the predawn hours of Tuesday. The exchange trades 10 virtual currencies including bitcoin and ethereum.
Yapian said in a statement that the latest security breach caused it to lose 17% of its total assets. The company didn’t specify the type of virtual currencies that were stolen or the financial value of its losses. The previous cyberattack, in April, also resulted in losses from its reserves.
Users of the exchange with digital coins in their online accounts were told by Youbit on Tuesday that they could withdraw about 75% of their cryptocurrency for now. The remaining balances would be returned after the company goes through bankruptcy proceedings, it said.
The threat of cyberattacks is heightening online-security concerns in the cryptocurrency markets as prices of bitcoin have surged over the past year and drawn a flood of investors and speculators to digital currency trading, especially in Asia.
After Youbit’s April cyberattack, which resulted in bigger losses than the latest hack, the exchange’s operator said it boosted security measures by storing more digital coins in hard wallets that effectively keep the currency offline, as opposed to online exchange accounts. It also made repairs to its system, but the latest attack proved those efforts were inadequate.
South Korea has recently become a hotbed for bitcoin and other cryptocurrency trading, drawing many young people and other retail investors to the market. A surge in trading volumes and investor fervor has drawn the attention of South Korea’s government, which last week proposed measures to cool speculation. Regulators there also fined BTC Korea.Com Co., the operator of a large cryptocurrency exchange, for compromising the personal information of thousands of its users after a hack earlier this year."
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