Korean web giant Naver acquired crypto exchange Upbit, which reported a $30m heist a day later

South Korean web giant Naver has had an interesting week, after it acquired a cryptocurrency exchange that the next day revealed it had suffered a serious cyberattack.

The fun started on Wednesday when Naver – which fills online niches served by Google, Yahoo and WhatsApp in other countries – announcing its acquisition of Dunamu Corp, operator of a cryptocurrency exchange called Upbit.

Naver said acquiring Upbit would help to grow its financial services business, making the $10.27 billion stock swap deal a sound investment.

That argument became rather harder to sustain on Thursday, because at 05:27 local time Upbit advised it had suspended withdrawals and deposits to wallets storing the Solana cryptocurrency to allow for maintenance of its wallet system.

At 08:55 the outfit changed the language it used to describe the situation to a mention of “emergency maintenance.”

By 12:33 Upbit admitted maintenance was needed due to ...