Attempts to breach the security of Upbit, South Korea's largest domestic cryptocurrency exchange, have surged, with almost 160,000 hacking attempts recorded in the first half of this year alone.

This figure was disclosed by Dunamu, the operator of Upbit, to Park Sung-jung, a member of the National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information, Broadcasting and Communication Committee today.

Comparatively, this represents an over 2 times increase over the number of intrusion attempts in the first half of the previous year, which stood at around 70,000 cases.

The steady rise in hacking attempts on Upbit has been a cause for concern.

The numbers have escalated from 8,356 in the second half of 2020 to 34,687 in the first half of 2021, 63,912 in the second half of 2021, 73,249 in the first half of 2022, and 87,242 in the second half of 2022.

In fact, hacking attempts in the first half of 2023 alone was the equivalent of all such attempts in 2022.

Losses from Previous Hacks

Upbit previously suffered damages of approximately 58 billion won due to a hacking attack in 2019.

To enhance security, Dunamu has revealed that it manages over 70% of its cryptocurrency holdings in cold wallets.

Cold wallets are offline storage solutions that are not connected to the internet, offering a higher level of security compared to hot wallets, which are online and susceptible to hacking.

In contrast, hot wallets provide immediate access for deposits and withdrawals, facilitating trading activities.

Most incidents of exchange hacking in the past have targeted hot wallets.

An official from Dunamu stated:

"Since the 2019 hacking incident, we have implemented various preventive measures, including the decentralised operation of hot wallets, and there have been no cyber intrusion incidents to date."