South Korean regulators failed to find Bithumb vulnerability despite six inspections

South Korean financial authorities failed to detect a critical system vulnerability at the Bithumb crypto exchange despite conducting six inspections over the past five years, IT Chosun reported. The oversight led to a recent large-scale erroneous payment incident. According to the office of People Power Party lawmaker Kang Min-guk, South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) and the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) each examined the exchange three times between 2021 and 2025. However, they did not identify the system's susceptibility to incorrect data entry, cited as the primary cause of the incident. During an emergency hearing of the National Policy Committee yesterday, Kang stated that the situation starkly reveals the shortcomings of the authorities' lax supervision and lack of regulation.