US$5million worth of HYBE shares were stolen from BTS‘ Jungkook by an unidentified hacker.
Yonhap News Agency reported on March 22 that the hacker had opened an unauthorised account under Jungkook’s name in January 2024, which was notably just a month after the K-pop idol had enlisted for mandatory military service.
They then transferred 33,000 HYBE shares from the K-pop star’s account to the newly opened account, before selling 500 more shares to a third-party investor. At the time, the shares stolen held a total value of about ₩8.4billion (US$5.7million).
Jungkook’s label and HYBE subsidiary, Big Hit Music, told press that immediate action was taken following the hack: “As soon as the company and the artist became aware of the criminal activity, we took measures such as suspending payments to the account and restoring the original value to prevent substantial damage.”
On top of this, Jungkook also filed a lawsuit for the return of the 500 shares sold. The Seoul Western District Court ruled in favour of the singer last month, followed by a court order for the third-party to return Jungkook’s shares.
However, the hacker has yet to be identified and charged. According to Korea JoongAng Daily, the person responsible would have access to Jungkook’s account number, password and identification details. This raises the possibility that the culprit could be somebody Jungkook knows, according to the outlet.
“We enhanced our security measures regarding artists’ private devices and personal information in addition to the legal measures,” Big Hit Music said in its statement.
In other BTS news, bandmate J-hope dropped a new single titled ‘Mona Lisa’ last week, marking his second music so far after he released his collaboration with Miguel, ‘Sweet Dreams’, earlier this month.