Bithumb Reports Employee Mobile-System Breach; Customer Assets Unaffected, Investigation Underway

South Korea’s cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb disclosed that an unauthorized party accessed an internal mobile system used by employees for work and communication. The company detected the intrusion on Tuesday and promptly informed the Korea Internet & Security Agency and the Personal Information Protection Commission while launching an internal investigation.

According to Bithumb, the compromised system operates separately from the exchange’s trading platform, and the firm maintains that customer virtual assets cannot be reached via this particular breach. At the time of reporting in the Asian afternoon hours, no losses of crypto funds had been confirmed. The exchange has not yet specified whether bank deposits or withdrawal processes were affected, nor has it disclosed how many individuals’ data may have been exposed.

Scope and regulatory response

Local news outlets say Bithumb is analyzing the incident’s full scope, including the possibility that member information may be involved. The breach places Bithumb among several financial firms now under scrutiny by South Korean regulators. The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) announced it was assessing multiple institutions on Wednesday.

FSS Governor Lee Chan-jin said that he believes many major financial investment firms experienced hacking attempts the previous day. Earlier in October, the regulator reported that cyberattacks had affected 16 South Korean financial companies as of Oct. 14.

Related incidents at other firms

Other firms reported incidents around the same time: Daishin Securities confirmed that personal and credit information for 38,490 customers was leaked in an external attack, while Mirae Asset Global Investments said it blocked abnormal access to certain web systems and that investor information remained unaffected.

Context: Bithumb’s prior control failures

This episode follows an earlier operational failure at Bithumb in February, when the exchange accidentally credited customers with 620,000 BTC instead of 620,000 won — an error that equated to over $40 billion at the time. CEO Lee Jae-won acknowledged weak internal controls following that incident and said the firm was sharply aware of its system control deficiencies.

Regulators and Bithumb continue examining evidence to determine the breach’s extent, and the company has pledged to update stakeholders as its analysis progresses.