Cyberattacks on financial institutions in South Korea are spreading. This morning it was confirmed that crypto exchange Bithumb, asset manager Mirae Asset Global Investments and brokerage Daishin Securities were hit by breaches, and Korea's Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) sent an inspection team on site.
Data of tens of thousands of customers leaked
The most serious damage so far is at Daishin Securities: according to the company, the personal and credit information of 38,490 customers was exposed. The breach was discovered after abnormal access was detected on October 17 on a server related to remote account opening. At Bithumb, one of Korea's largest crypto exchanges, an outside party broke into an internal employee collaboration system, and the company is still checking whether customer data was also exposed. Mirae Asset Global Investments said only information from certain business systems leaked, and that investor and credit information was not affected.
The regulator responds
The FSS sent an inspection team to Daishin, ordered all financial institutions to strengthen IT defenses, and is examining the incidents at Bithumb and Mirae Asset, alongside an open investigation into an earlier breach at insurer Mirae Asset Life. FSS chairman Lee Chan-jin said that as AI is used more and more in attacks, security vulnerabilities will become easier to find, and targeted attacks on several institutions at once could become the new normal.
The lesson for cybersecurity elsewhere
It is not yet known who is behind the breaches or whether they are connected. But the Korean regulator's warning applies elsewhere too: remote account-opening systems, internal collaboration systems and tools opened up for work from anywhere are favored entry points. Just this week we reported on PHP2Shell flaws being exploited in attacks, and on a rise in cyberattacks on Israeli organizations around the elections. Financial institutions, crypto exchanges and investment firms should assume they are targets and check their defenses now.
The story is still developing, and the scope of the Bithumb leak and the number of affected customers may change.
