NHK has found that the people who hacked the Japanese virtual currency exchange Coincheck in January worked on the plot for more than half a year.
Coincheck lost more than 500 million dollars’ worth of NEM cryptocurrency in the suspected hack.
Sources told NHK that an analysis of communication records and employees’ email exchanges has found that those responsible for the attack used social networking services to identify Coincheck engineers who have administrative rights to the company’s system.
The hackers then initiated exchanges with the engineers using false names and took measures not to raise any suspicions.
They sent an email written in English that had a virus, which the engineers opened unsuspectingly.
Cyber-attacks carried out over such a long period of time are unprecedented in Japan.
Experts say it was a new type of targeted attack that was prepared for thoroughly.
Coincheck told NHK that the company is unable to conduct media interviews regarding security issues, as it is giving priority to resuming service and registering with the Financial Services Agency.