Supreme Prosecutors Office of the Republic of Korea

History

2026: $48 million loss of confiscated bitcoins due to hacker attack

At the end of January 2026, it became known that the Gwangju District Prosecutor's Office in South Korea lost cryptocurrency worth about 70 billion won (about $48 million). These funds were confiscated during earlier investigative measures.

The incident was revealed during a planned internal audit of the seized financial assets. The Gwangju County Prosecutor's Office, according to network resources, stored private keys and passwords on portable devices, including USB drives. Hackers managed to steal these keys due to the fact that one of the employees of the department went to a phishing site when the drive was connected to a computer. As a result, confiscated digital assets, including bitcoins, were stolen from the prosecutor's office.

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Фото: Freepik

An internal investigation has been launched into the incident. Experts are trying to establish exactly how the attackers stole the funds and whether they can be returned. Other details of the incident were not disclosed.

Information security experts emphasize that phishing remains one of the most common ways to steal cryptocurrency. Such schemes are based on the use of fake websites or fraudulent messages in order to fraudulently extract confidential information from victims, in particular, private keys or credentials. Attacks are aimed at both ordinary users and organizations.

According to PeckShield, in 2025, the total damage from hacks of various cryptocurrency platforms and cryptocurrency scams amounted to $4.04 billion. This is 34% more than in the previous year, when losses were estimated at $3.01 billion. At the same time, due to the compromise of cryptocurrency services, approximately $2.67 billion was lost, while losses from fraud reached $1.37 billion^[1]

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