South Korean Cryptocurrency Exchange Hacked

South Korea-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinrail announced on Sunday a cyber-incident during which an intruder made off with a large amount of ICO tokens stored on the company’s servers. The exchange announced the hack via a message on its website where it admitted a hacker stole tokens issued during the initial coin offerings of Pundi X and Aston, which were being traded at the time on its servers. Andy Norton, Director of Threat Intelligence at Lastline commented below.

Andy Norton, Director of Threat Intelligence at Lastline:

“The cryptocurrency marketplace is immature and provides very little in terms of safeguards to investors. It’s extremely unlikely that cyber security controls inside a cryptocurrency exchange are anywhere near the level of controls a FIAT bank would have. These shortcomings, and many other things like the lack of clarity around anti-money laundering controls and knowing your customer requirements will continue to prevent cryptocurrency from going mainstream as a payment method”.