GDAC, a South Korean cryptocurrency exchange, has suffered a security breach resulting in the theft of approximately $13.9 million worth of cryptocurrency. The incident involved the attacker gaining access to some of the exchange’s hot wallets, which led to the movement of crypto into wallets controlled by the attacker. The stolen assets include around 61 Bitcoin, 350.5 Ether, 10 million of the WEMIX gaming currency, and $220,000 worth of Tether, as per the announcement by GDAC CEO Han Seunghwan.

As a response to the attack, GDAC has temporarily suspended all deposits and withdrawals while performing emergency server maintenance. The exchange has reported the hack to the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) and notified the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of the loss. Furthermore, GDAC has alerted the police and requested other cryptocurrency exchanges not to accept deposits from the attacker’s address.

The stolen amount accounts for approximately 23% of GDAC’s current total custodial assets, according to the announcement. The exchange has also stated that it is currently impossible to determine the resumption point of deposits and withdrawals as the investigation is still ongoing.

The GDAC hack is the first major centralized cryptocurrency exchange hack of 2023. Unfortunately, such attacks continue to be a problem for the crypto industry, as seen in the recent past with incidents at Crypto.com and FTX.