Wemix CEO: delayed $6.2M hack announcement was to prevent “market panic”

• The Wemix Foundation suffered a $6.2 million hack on February 28, but only alerted its investors on March 4
• The hacker managed to steal 8.65 million WEMIX coins
• Wemix Foundation’s CEO doesn’t believe the hack is the result of Lazarus

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.

In a press conference on Monday, Kim denied any intention to conceal the exploit.

On February 28, over 8.65 million WEMIX coins were withdrawn due to a malicious attack on the platform’s Play Bridge Vault.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.

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

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

Sophisticated attack

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.

Latest hack

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.