Upbit’s hack just keeps getting worse. South Korean authorities are pretty sure North Korea’s Lazarus group is behind the attack that stole around 44.5 billion won, about $30 million. The hackers used some seriously advanced stuff, converting 24 different Solana tokens into wrapped SOL and then spreading everything across 185 wallets.
What’s really crazy is the timing here. Dunamu, which owns Upbit, announced this massive $10.3 billion merger with tech giant Naver on the exact same day as the hack happened. I mean, talk about terrible timing, right? Now the whole deal’s under a cloud, and nobody knows what’ll happen.
Dunamu’s already in deep trouble with regulators. They got slapped with a record 35.2 billion won fine earlier this month for violating financial reporting requirements. That’s the biggest penalty Korea’s Financial Intelligence Unit has ever handed out to a crypto company. They failed to do customer checks like 5.3 million times and didn’t report 15 suspicious activities either.
These penalties have frozen license renewals for all the major Korean exchanges for over a year now. Everyone’s just operating on extended licenses, waiting for Dunamu’s case to play out. If they find internal security failures, Dunamu could get hit even harder. But if Lazarus gets confirmed, they might catch a break.
Conclusion
Upbit’s suspected Lazarus hack threatens its regulatory future and the massive Naver merger, potentially reshaping South Korea’s entire cryptocurrency landscape as investigations continue into what went wrong.
Also Read: Texas Buys Bitcoin via IBIT
