Emergency Inspections and Government Response
South Korean financial regulators launched emergency inspections on October 28, 2026, after a series of cyberattacks targeted prominent financial institutions, extending a recent wave of hacking incidents from commercial banks into brokerages, asset management firms and digital-asset services.
According to the Financial Supervisory Service, on-site inspection teams were dispatched to Daishin Securities and cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb to determine how the intrusions occurred and assess the scope of the damage. Simultaneously, the Financial Services Commission convened an emergency inspection meeting, while national police opened a preliminary investigation into the breaches affecting Daishin Securities, Mirae Asset Global Investments and Bithumb.
The presidential office also convened an emergency response session involving officials from financial, science, personal-information and cybersecurity agencies. The multi-agency group reviewed the ongoing investigations, evaluated measures to block phishing attacks stemming from leaked data, and examined whether the separate incidents share common technical attack vectors.
Details of the Bithumb and Brokerage Breaches
Bithumb disclosed that it detected unauthorized access on October 27, 2026, targeting its internal mobile groupware system utilized by employees. While internal employee information was compromised, the exchange stated that the affected system operated entirely separate from its core trading platform. Bithumb confirmed that no customer cryptocurrency funds were lost, though officials remained in the process of evaluating whether customer personal data was also extracted during the incident. The exchange reported the breach to the Korea Internet and Security Agency and the Personal Information Protection Commission.
In the brokerage sector, Daishin Securities announced that personal and credit information belonging to 38,490 customers—including names and email addresses—was leaked. Mirae Asset Global Investments reported a separate data breach, though authorities have not yet confirmed a direct link between its intrusion and the breach at Bithumb.
Background and Wider Sector Security
The latest breaches follow a financial-sector security self-assessment that covered 555 companies through October 8, 2026. Regulators published the results of that review on October 14, revealing that 425 firms maintained adequate security measures across all evaluated categories, while 130 firms acknowledged security deficiencies in at least one area.
Authorities have not yet publicly named a perpetrator or verified whether the incidents formed part of a single coordinated campaign. Current investigative efforts remain focused on establishing the individual breach mechanisms, uncovering any further unauthorized data exposure, and preventing secondary financial fraud utilizing leaked credentials.
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