South Korea Reviews Exchange Defenses After $6.3 Billion Binance Hack

South Korea’s Financial Services Commission reviewed crypto exchange access and withdrawal controls after a Binance hot-wallet breach affected about $6.3 billion in token assets, focusing attention on safeguards used by platforms serving global markets.

The commission convened an emergency meeting on Nov. 2 in South Korea with the Financial Supervisory Service, Financial Security Institute, DAXA and major virtual-asset providers. It urged exchanges to review system access, hot-wallet withdrawal approvals, signing procedures and administrator permissions. It also called for higher cold-wallet holdings, continuous deposit and withdrawal monitoring, more response staff, faster reporting, sharing information about abnormal access attempts and additional reserves.

Binance said its hot wallets were compromised at about 4:05 p.m. ET Oct. 29 (20:05 UTC), affecting approximately $6.3 billion in token assets. By 3:33 p.m. ET Oct. 30 (19:33 UTC), about $3 billion had been frozen on-chain. Binance said it would cover losses through its Secure Asset Fund for Users and corporate funds.

The FBI said North Korea was responsible for the theft of more than $6 billion and named the activity “TraderTraitor.” South Korean rules already require providers to hold at least 80% of customer assets in cold wallets and maintain insurance or reserves for hacks or computer failures.