Upbit took 6 hours to report after being hacked, and the hacker stole 44.5 billion KRW in 54 minutes.

[BlockBeats] South Korea’s leading exchange Upbit is really in trouble this time—after being hacked, it actually took 6 hours to report the incident to regulators.

The incident happened in the early hours of November 27. The platform noticed abnormal transactions on accounts at 4:42 a.m. But what happened? It wasn’t until nearly 11 a.m. that they finally reported the incident to the Financial Supervisory Service. During this window, hackers took just 54 minutes to steal over 1.04 billion Solana ecosystem tokens, which was worth about 44.5 billion KRW at the time.

The timeline is even more outrageous: it took 18 minutes after discovering the issue to hold an emergency meeting, 27 minutes to suspend Solana token deposits and withdrawals, and it wasn’t until nearly 9 a.m. that they fully froze all digital asset transfers. As for their response speed, what can you say…

What’s even more awkward is that under current South Korean law, there are no direct penalty provisions for security incidents on virtual asset platforms. Regulators want to fine them but can’t find any legal basis, which is pretty powerless.

Upbit, for its part, has stated that it fully compensated users for their losses with its own funds, and emphasized that they “reported immediately after confirming the breach.” As for why this “immediately” took 6 hours, well, you can judge for yourself.

This incident is another reminder: the security response mechanisms and regulatory framework for centralized platforms still need a lot of improvement.