Wemix CEO Kim Seok-hwan commented on the decision to delay announcing the $6.2 million exploit, citing the need to prevent panic and further attacks.
Details of the Wemix exploit
During a press conference on Monday, Kim denied attempts to cover up the breach, which was first revealed on March 4. The exploit targeting Wemix’s Play Bridge led to the theft of 8.65 million tokens. The skilled attacker accessed the system by stealing an authentication key linked to Wemix's NFT platform and made 15 withdrawal attempts, of which 13 succeeded.
The response to the incident
After detecting the breach, Wemix shut down the compromised server and reported the incident to the Seoul National Police Agency's Cyber Investigation Team. Kim noted that preliminary findings suggest the attack was not carried out by the North Korean-linked Lazarus Group, known for past crypto hacking incidents.
Market impact and measures
Despite efforts to control the market impact, WEMIX dropped nearly 40%, from $0.70 to $0.42. To stabilize prices, Wemix announced a $6.9 million token buyback on March 13, followed by another 20 million token purchase. This temporarily pushed the token above $0.70, stabilizing around $0.60. Kim stated that the team has strengthened security and will resume full services on new blockchain infrastructure on Friday.
The Wemix exploit emphasized the importance of securing digital assets and quickly responding to cyber threats.
