South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) announced on November 12 that it plans to allow cryptocurrency exchanges to suspend deposits and withdrawals in advance when they suspect a hacking attack, without waiting for the attack to be confirmed. The FSC will issue a no-action letter to provide regulatory protection for qualifying preventive freezes, but this will not give exchanges unlimited authority to freeze customer funds. The current Virtual Asset User Protection Act allows trading to be suspended only when a hacking incident is clearly established. The proposed change aims to eliminate legal uncertainty around intervention in advance. The move follows several recent security incidents: GOPAX suspended services on November 6 after receiving a hacking threat email, and an abnormal withdrawal from Prabang’s hot wallet on October 24 resulted in a loss of about $70,000. The FSC is also requiring exchanges to strengthen 24/7 monitoring and limit hot-wallet balances. It will introduce cybersecurity obligations and liability for compensation comparable to those of financial institutions through the proposed Digital Asset Act. South Korea currently requires exchanges to keep at least 80% of customer assets in cold wallets, and the industry-wide cold-wallet ratio has already exceeded 95%. (Source: crypto.news, November 13) $BTC $ETH