Korean Exchange Puts $620K Worth of Crypto At Risk in Leaked Chat

A new cryptocurrency exchange from South Korea has leaked critical information about 19 users on its platform, which could put some $620,000 worth of a cryptocurrency at risk.

According to a report from CoinDesk Korea on Monday, an employee of Bitkoex, an exchange launched in May, posted in a Kakao group chat on last Friday details of the Karma cryptocurrency held by the 19 users on the platform.

The total amount of the token owned by the users worth 750 million won, or around $620,000, the report said.

Following the event, Bitkoex said the employee posted the message by accident and the exchange has moved the exposed assets to a cold wallet, which is not accessible through the internet.

This is not the first time that user information had been leaked from a Korean crypto exchange.

As previously reported by CoinDesk, the computer of an employee from Bithumb, one of the largest crypto exchanges in South Korea by trading volume, was hacked earlier last year.

Information of as many as 30,000 users on the platform was subsequently leaked.

Yesterday's report said the country's Ministry of Science and ICT inspected the information security level of 21 crypto exchanges in South Korea from January to March and confirmed that most companies have security vulnerabilities.

Just last week, Bithumb said that around $31 million in cryptocurrency was stolen by hackers from the platform.

CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.