Upbit Hack

TOTAL LOST $36.0M
High #156 All-Time Private Key Compromised / Other solana

Summarize with AI

ChatGPT Perplexity Claude Grok
Affected Chain solana Incident surface
Recovered $8.0M 22.2% returned
All-Time Rank #156 By amount stolen
Auditors 1 Prior security audit

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

On November 27, 2025, South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Upbit suffered an unauthorized withdrawal of approximately 44.5 billion KRW (~$36 million) in Solana-based assets from its hot wallet. The breach occurred on the same day Upbit's parent company Dunamu announced a major partnership with Naver, with the exchange immediately suspending all Solana network deposits and withdrawals while committing to fully cover losses with its own assets.

Details of the Exploit

The unauthorized withdrawals affected 24 Solana network-based tokens including SOL, USDC, BONK, JUP, RAY, RENDER, ORCA, PYTH, TRUMP, LAYER, ME, MEW, DRIFT, PENGU, and others, totaling approximately 44.5 billion KRW (initially reported as 54 billion but later corrected). The breach targeted Upbit's operational hot wallet infrastructure, with funds transferred to unidentified external wallet addresses. Upon detection at 4:42 AM KST, Upbit immediately suspended all Solana network deposit and withdrawal services and began emergency security inspections.

The exchange successfully froze approximately 2.3 billion KRW worth of LAYER tokens through on-chain measures and continues tracking remaining assets in cooperation with relevant projects and authorities. All affected assets were moved to secure cold wallet storage, and Upbit confirmed that cold wallets experienced no compromise. The company pledged to fully compensate the losses using its own reserves, ensuring no impact to customer funds.

This is classified as a Access Control Attacks . Compare similar hacks →

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Upbit
Date of Incident
Affected Chain(s) solana
Attack Technique Private Key Compromised / Other
Classification Infrastructure / CeFi
Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Lending
Official Website upbit.com/home
Protocol Twitter/X @Official_Upbit
Team Public / Doxxed
Source Code Unverified

Market Context at Time of Hack

Protocol Links

What the Attacker Needed to Succeed

Understanding the prerequisites for this type of attack helps auditors identify protocols that are most at risk and helps developers build better defenses.

Technical Knowledge Operational-security tradecraft (phishing, malware, leaked seed phrases, or insider access) to obtain treasury signing authority
Capital Required Minimal capital - only enough to cover Solana network fees while draining the compromised accounts
On-Chain Access Valid signing authority over the compromised stake accounts and treasury wallets, allowing direct transfer of funds or stake authorization
Target Reconnaissance Identification of Upbit's high-value treasury accounts and the authority / multisig structure controlling them
Execution Speed Speed to drain the compromised accounts before the team detects the breach and revokes signing authority or freezes the assets
Obfuscation Plan A strategy to launder and move stolen funds - typically through mixers, cross-chain bridges, or decentralized DEX swaps to resist tracing

What Auditors Should Check

Could this have been caught in audit? Hard to catch — private key / OpSec failures are outside smart contract audit scope
Audited by Audit Report 1 — still lost $36.0M. Prior audits don't guarantee safety, especially after post-audit code changes.

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to Upbit, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (November 2025).

  • Verify all logic paths related to Private Key Compromised / Other are guarded by proper access controls and input validation - see the Access Control Attacks attack class for patterns
  • Review privileged functions (owner, admin, governance) for potential abuse vectors - centralization risks should be documented and bounded with timelocks or multi-sigs

Master these auditing techniques with hands-on labs and real exploit scenarios in the Smart Contract Hacking course.

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Funds Recovery

22.2%

Recovered

$8.0M

Net Loss

28008000

Security Audit History

Post-Incident Timeline

  • 2025-11-28

    According to Upbit's official notice, approximately 2.3 billion KRW (~$1.7 million USD) worth of Solayer (LAYER) tokens were successfully frozen on-chain following the November 27 breach, with the exchange continuing to coordinate with additional projects and institutions to freeze more of the stolen assets from the total 44.5 billion KRW ($36 million) that was drained from their Solana hot wallet.

Related Attack Classes

The technique used in this hack maps to these vulnerability classes in our security curriculum:

See all Access Control Attacks examples →

Access Control Attacks

Sources & References

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These hacks used the same attack technique. Understanding the pattern helps prevent future exploits.

GANA Payment $3.1M
Private Key Compromised / Other

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