After the Divorce, I Found a Thousand Bitcoins - Chapter 103

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

I Got Divorced and Found a Thousand Bitcoins Episode 103

Jeong Ye-dam used a tablet to explain the hacking route.

“The hacker appears to have hacked an employee’s smartphone using the Dashi app. Then they accessed the internal network through the work laptop this employee was using, and subsequently modified system files on the internal server to plant a backdoor.”

“Hmm… If they planted a backdoor, doesn’t that mean they can infiltrate anytime?”

“Yes, so there’s no immediate damage at the moment. I suspect the information the hacker wants is located elsewhere.”

As an expert, Jeong Ye-dam had already figured out what purpose the other party had approached with.

“It’s fortunate there’s no damage. But if the information they want is elsewhere, where could it be?”

“Among the current group subsidiaries, if they went as far as deploying hackers to plant backdoors, it’s likely Nereid.”

He had somewhat expected this.

Currently, within KH Group, Nereid was the only subsidiary worth this level of effort.

And there was only one place that would do such a thing.

‘China again? Since they failed to plant people, now they’re trying to plant hacking programs instead.’

After screening everyone out during interviews, this time they were trying to steal internal materials by planting hacking programs.

Moreover, the fact that they only planted a backdoor without immediately hacking suggested they planned to wait until they could make contact with Nereid from the inside.

Seeing this aspect made it feel even more despicable.

However, there was one strange part.

“But you said they accessed through Dashi.”

“Yes, an employee’s personal smartphone was connected to a company-issued laptop, and they appear to have infiltrated using that. From now on, we’ll issue separate work smartphones and pay more attention to security. I apologize.”

“I’m not asking for an apology. How were they able to plant hacking tools in the Dashi app?”

“There are two main possibilities. A hacker could have infiltrated internally and conducted tapjacking or overlay attacks on the app. Otherwise, Dashi itself could have been hacked and they came through there.”

“Both possibilities could be true as well.”

“Yes, in that case, there’s a high possibility that all of Dashi’s personal information was hacked.”

When Team Manager Jeong Ye-dam flipped the tablet screen, Dashi’s logo appeared with the word “hacking” written on it.

The moment he saw that, Kang Hyeon could tell it was real.

‘Blue light.’

Because blue light was emanating from it, allowing him to be certain.

‘It’s quite intense light. This isn’t just about our hacking being the problem, is it?’

With this level of light, there was a high possibility of some major issue within Dashi.

‘I need to check this out.’

For some reason, he felt this wouldn’t be an ordinary matter.

* * *

Dash Headquarters.

At Dashi, which had become a global company after going public on NASDAQ, there were several secretive locations.

Among them was a place where those who provided direct advice as global executives gathered for meetings.

Kim Jae-beom, Dashi’s CEO, also attended these meetings.

Since he was currently overseas, he led the meeting via video conference rather than attending in person.

-Alright, let’s start immediately. As you’ve already been informed, Dashi’s customer database has been hacked. The employee in question has already left Korea. How should we respond going forward?

The company had already detected the hacking incident.

But they hadn’t disclosed it externally.

The reason was obviously singular.

“If this fact becomes known, it will affect Dashi’s credibility. So we must thoroughly hide it.”

“If the Government of South Korea gets involved, things will become complicated. This fact must be kept thoroughly secret to prevent external disclosure.”

“It’s not a big problem in Korea. The issue is that if the Government of South Korea launches an investigation and determines it’s our fault, there’s a high possibility of lawsuits proceeding in the United States. In that case, enormous compensation will be assessed.”

They had no intention of disclosing the hacking incident externally.

They took the stance of hiding the facts and keeping them thoroughly secret.

And Kim Jae-beom also agreed with this approach.

-I think the same way. A hacking incident can be resolved with some apologies and a little compensation, but if it leads to lawsuits in the United States, it becomes troublesome.

“Essentially, if we go down that route, the company will be devastated.”

“Even if the hacking incident is disclosed externally, we must not admit our fault.”

To them, the hacking incident wasn’t a big problem.

They only recognized the lawsuits that would follow as the biggest problem.

* * *

Kang Hyeon launched his trading program for the first time in a while.

He hadn’t done proper trading since stepping back from the front lines of KH Capital.

‘It’s been a while since I’ve seen this screen.’

Several months had already passed since he last saw it.

When he was working as a trader, he lived looking at screens like this every day, but now he didn’t have many occasions to see them.

‘Let’s see…’

He entered Dashi in the stock section.

Although it was a stock listed on NASDAQ in the United States rather than the Korean exchange, it was immediately searchable in the program.

‘It’s trending upward.’

After going public on NASDAQ, Dashi had continued trending downward but had been repeatedly trending upward over the past year.

It had already surpassed its listing price and was showing good pace while setting new highs.

‘I collected information about Dashi when I was active too.’

Korea’s largest e-commerce company going public on NASDAQ in the United States.

This fact alone was enough to attract traders’ attention.

At the time, Kang Hyeon had also gathered information about Dashi and actually proceeded with investments.

‘Though I got hurt by entering too early.’

For newly listed stocks, you had to time it well because early investors would dump their holdings for profit realization.

Otherwise, you’d likely get swept up in the dumping and have to make long-term investments holding for several years.

At the time, Kang Hyeon had failed at this and recorded losses.

‘What’s important is the current situation. If Dashi was hacked and they’re hiding that fact internally, the stock price will definitely be affected.’

A hacking incident would inevitably deal a major blow to e-commerce companies.

Especially for companies listed in the United States, personal information laws apply very strictly.

Although Dashi was a company that primarily operated in Korea, if that fact became known, the stock price would certainly fall significantly.

‘Let’s see…’

Kang Hyeon heightened his concentration to check the stock price.

And not long after, blue light began rippling from Dashi’s stock name.

That light emanated strongly and soon became large enough to envelop the entire stock window.

“Huh…”

With this level of light, there was a high possibility that Dashi’s stock would fall significantly in the future.

And the trigger for that would definitely be the hacking.

“At this level, it’ll become a huge issue.”

Judging by the intensity of the light, there was a high possibility of movement soon.

Therefore, Kang Hyeon immediately picked up the phone.

“Kwangho? Let’s meet.”

It was time to meet Kwangho.

* * *

When Kang Hyeon founded KH Group and took the chairman’s seat, Kwangho naturally became the president of KH Capital.

However, there was no major change in their relationship.

“Oh my, Chairman. Did you call for me?”

“Cut the crap. How have you been?”

Kwangho chuckled at their unchanged reactions and brought up the main topic.

“So what’s today’s business?”

“How’s Dashi these days?”

“Dashi? It’s doing well. First, they’ve completely dominated the domestic market and user evaluations are very good. Plus they’re preparing for overseas expansion, so the outlook is good too.”

The evaluation was tremendously positive.

There was a lot of information he already knew.

It was fair to say that Dashi had completely dominated the domestic market.

Especially after experiencing the pandemic, users mainly used Dashi with its dawn delivery service rather than using offline stores with many users.

As a result, their market share skyrocketed, and the decisive factor was that people primarily used Dashi, which had overwhelming convenience compared to other e-commerce platforms.

“Are there users in Korea who don’t use Dashi?”

“There must be some, but the number of subscribers has exceeded 40 million and daily users are recording 15-16 million. Practically everyone up to their 40s uses it.”

Kwangho answered Kang Hyeon’s question without hesitation, then asked what he was curious about.

“But you didn’t ask this out of curiosity. Are you thinking of entering the logistics market? Or…”

Kwangho’s gaze turned sharp.

“Is there a problem with Dashi?”

Having spent a long time with Kang Hyeon, Kwangho immediately sensed that he hadn’t asked about Dashi for no reason.

Since Kang Hyeon had no intention of hiding anything from Kwangho, he shared the relevant information.

“Recently, the security team submitted a report.”

When he handed over the tablet PC, Kwangho quickly reviewed the related content.

“They planted hacking tools on internal employees through Dashi?”

“Yeah, it seems to be from China. Dashi’s internal staff includes many Chinese employees.”

“Were they preparing to hack our group’s Nereid?”

“It seems so. The security team blocked it well. But the problem is, for this to be possible, we have to assume Dashi has already been compromised.”

“Definitely… we have to consider Dashi’s internal systems completely compromised.”

If Dashi, this massive e-commerce platform, had been hacked, it was like facing a huge incident.

“Similar cases include the personal information leak incidents at telecommunications companies.”

“Hmm, it has been quite noisy recently. But if Dashi was hacked, wouldn’t it be even bigger in scale?”

“That’s right. While three telecom companies divide the market, Dashi practically has a monopoly in the e-commerce market.”

“Plus, not just active users, but information of people who signed up in the past was likely compromised too.”

“Right. The problem is that Dashi isn’t making this fact public.”

Kwangho’s face hardened.

“They’re essentially sitting on a time bomb.”

“Yeah, the moment this fact becomes public, Dashi’s stock price will fluctuate wildly.”

“We should take a short position on our end?”

“That’s why I called you. How much cash liquidity does KH Capital currently have?”

“I’ll need to check the exact amount, but when I last confirmed, it was a little over 2 trillion won. The rest is positioned in nickel futures – should I liquidate some of that?”

KH Capital’s total managed funds exceeded 5 trillion won.

More than half of it was tied up in nickel futures, but since they were already profitable, it wasn’t a major problem.

“No. The entry price is good and the nickel super cycle hasn’t come yet, so it would be a waste to liquidate now. Let’s hold onto that and only use available operating funds for short selling.”

“Okay. Then I’ll set up short positions centered around JP Morgan.”

“Right, you know well, but if we take too large a position at once, the market might react.”

“Am I an amateur? I know that much. By the way, should I cancel my Dashi membership? I’m registered too.”

“If it’s already been hacked, wouldn’t it be better to leave it? At least we’d get compensation.”

“True, Dashi has plenty of money, so they’ll probably compensate properly.”

Since the damage was already confirmed, thinking about compensation that could cover it – they were traders to the bone.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————