Wemix Foundation CEO Kim Seok-hwan Denies Attempt to Conceal $6.2M Hack

Kim Seok-hwan, Wemix Foundation's CEO, said there was “no attempt” to conceal a $6.2 million hack on it following an announcement four days later.

Kim Seok-hwan, the CEO of Wemix Foundation, said on Monday there was “no attempt” to conceal a $6.2 million hack on the platform following an announcement four days later.

At a press conference, Kim also denied any intention to deceive investors.

On February 28, over 8.65 million WEMIX coins were withdrawn due to an attack on the platform’s Play Bridge Vault. However, the South Korean platform only alerted its investors when an announcement was posted on its homepage on March 4.

“The announcement was delayed due to concerns about the possibility of additional attacks and the possibility of market panic due to stolen assets,” said Kim.

According to the CEO, most of the assets had already been sold and the market impact had already happened, adding that there was no guarantee of “additional risk.”

Bowing his head several times at the press conference, Kim acknowledged full responsibility for the delayed announcement.

Explaining what happened, Kim said an unidentified attacker stole the service monitoring authentication key for its non-fungible token (NFT) platform Nile. According to Kim, the attacker planned the hack for two months, creating abnormal transactions and attempting 15 withdrawals.

Of these, two failed, but 13 were successful, resulting in the theft of 8.65 million Wemix.

After learning of the exploit, Kim said they shut down the server and began a detailed analysis. They also filed a complaint against the attacker with the Cyber ​​Investigation Unit of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency.

Kim believes that the hack was unlikely carried out by Lazarus, the North Korean-backed hacking group.

In recent weeks, several platforms have suffered security breaches, resulting in the theft of various coins.

Last month, Bybit was hacked after those responsible drained $1.4 billion worth of Ethereum from a single wallet. It was later reported that Lazarus was behind the theft.

Days later, Infini suffered a $50 million hack. The attacker in this case had retained the admin rights after working on Infini’s development contract, enabling them to gain access to the funds.

Regarding the Wemix Foundation, Kim said on March 13 that they will buy back 10 billion Korean won (around $7 million) worth of Wemix tokens. The following day, the foundation announced plans to purchase a further 20 million tokens.

During the press conference, Kim said they are working towards fully resuming services on Friday, March 21 after introducing new security measures to their blockchain infrastructure.