A month of unnoticed intrusions, then two days of silence: Korean exchange Gopax apologises as regulators count 16 hacked financial firms

Gopax, one of South Korea's licensed crypto exchanges, has apologised to users over a breach that regulators had made public two days before the exchange posted its own notice. Abnormal access to some customer accounts began in early September and was confirmed only in early October, Seoul Economic Daily reported. The nicknames and login histories of nine people were viewed from outside: seven customers and two current or former employees. The exchange says it has found no unauthorised withdrawals of won or crypto and no asset losses.

The Financial Services Commission announced the incident on October 14. Gopax posted a notice on its website at 4:24pm Korean time on October 16, apologising for the concern caused and urging users to watch for identity verification requests they did not start and to avoid links in messages from unknown senders, Seoul Economic Daily reported. Its operator, Streami, said it would cooperate with the authorities' investigation, TokenPost reported.

The exchange is a small part of a much larger problem. At an interagency meeting on October 14 the FSC said it had confirmed incidents at 16 financial institutions, including incidents before and after a breach at Shinhan Bank, among them banks, savings banks, credit finance firms, Streami and another firm where News1 reported the data of 20 customers was leaked. About 100,000 records were exposed across the 16, though as of that date no account or card numbers usable for fraudulent payments had been confirmed among them. Security checks of 555 institutions found shortcomings at 130. Investigators are tracing the attack routes, whether the cases are connected and whether AI was used; whether the Gopax intrusion shares a method with the others has not been disclosed.