Wemix Delayed $6.2M Hack Report to Prevent Panic, CEO Says

Wemix Foundation’s CEO, Kim Seok-hwan, said they waited four days before telling investors about a $6.2 million hack. He said they didn’t want to cause panic. 

At a press conference 17 days after the attack, Kim admitted he made the decision but denied trying to hide anything. “We did not make an immediate announcement because prematurely publicizing information without identifying the method of the exploit could expose us to further attacks,” he explained, according to Yonhap News Agency.

The attack happened on Play Bridge, a part of Wemix, which is a blockchain platform owned by South Korean game company Wemade. The hacker stole 8.65 million Wemix tokens, worth about $6.2 million. But investors weren’t told until March 4, four days after it happened. 

Wemix shut down the compromised server right away and reported the incident to the police. The team also worked on finding out how the attack happened and how to stop anything similar in the future.

Kim said the hacker was a professional and had been planning this attack for two months. The attacker stole a special authentication key used to monitor Wemix’s NFT platform, Nile. Using this, they tried to withdraw funds 15 times, and 13 of those attempts were successful. Even though some people suspected the North Korean hacking group, Lazarus, Kim said there’s no evidence they were involved.

Following the attack. Wemix’s token price fell more than 18% on February 28, dropping from $0.70 to $0.56. By March 4, it fell even further to $0.42, meaning a 40% loss in just a few days. Investors were not happy, and Wemix needed to do something to fix it.

To help recover, Wemix announced on March 13 that they would buy back 10 billion Korean won ($6.9 million) worth of tokens. The next day, they said they would buy 20 million more tokens. This made the token price go back up to $0.70 for a short time, but it later dropped again to around $0.60.

Now, Wemix is getting ready to reopen full services on Friday. The CEO said they’ve upgraded their security and are moving to a new blockchain system. Meanwhile, the investigation is still ongoing, and authorities are trying to track down the hacker.