An incident occurred in which 300 million won in customer deposits was drained from an online investment-linked finance company (P2P lending firm). This marks the first time that hacking has led to the outflow of won-denominated deposits in the financial sector.
According to financial industry sources on the 2nd, P2P lending firm Zoomfund recently experienced an incident in which approximately 300 million won in customer deposits was leaked due to a hack.
The company stated, "A hacking incident occurred at our company, and it has been reported to the Financial Supervisory Service, KISA (Korea Internet & Security Agency), and others. We are currently investigating the circumstances, causes, and overall scale of the incident."
Zoomfund stores customer deposits with a separate financial institution. However, this hack is believed to have originated not from the deposit-holding institution that separately safeguards customer funds, but from the P2P lending firm's computer system. It is understood that after hackers gained unauthorized access to Zoomfund's servers, they requested abnormal fund transfers, and the deposit-holding institution subsequently paid out customer deposits to a third-party account in accordance with those requests.
The Financial Supervisory Service, which was notified of the incident, launched an on-site inspection starting on the 28th of last month. The Financial Supervisory Service is examining the hackers' intrusion path, the process by which the abnormal transfer requests were made, and the deposit-holding institution's payment approval procedures.
This is the first time that won-denominated deposits have been drained amid the wave of hacking incidents in the financial sector that has continued since late September last month. On the 24th of last month, 100 million won worth of virtual assets was abnormally withdrawn from the cryptocurrency exchange "Prabang."
Zoomfund is reportedly preparing to compensate affected customers for their financial losses. Under Article 9 of the Electronic Financial Transactions Act, if customer deposits are leaked due to an electronic financial incident, the financial institution must compensate for the resulting damages.
Under supervisory regulations of the Online Investment-Linked Finance Act, P2P lending firms must either enroll in insurance or mutual aid schemes that guarantee amounts exceeding specified thresholds based on their linked loan sizes, or accumulate reserves above those amounts, in order to fulfill their liability for damages. The minimum guaranteed amount and reserve requirement are 50 million won if the outstanding balance of linked loans is less than 30 billion won, 100 million won if it is 30 billion won or more but less than 100 billion won, and 300 million won if it is 100 billion won or more.
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