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[HO CHI MINH CITY] As he boarded a flight from Ho Chi Minh City to Dubai, Nguyen Le Thanh had already done what few could in the wake of the largest crypto heist in history: engineer a critical solution and devise response strategies before the plane’s wheels even left the ground.

Just a day earlier, Dubai-headquartered Bybit – the world’s second-largest crypto exchange by trading volume – fell victim to a massive cyberattack, in which North Korean hackers drained US$1.5 billion worth of digital assets from Bybit’s cold wallet, sending shockwaves through the industry.

Thanh, founder of Vietnam-based cybersecurity firm Verichains, was among the first responders. “Investigation is just one thing. The most challenging part for firms is how to deal with the aftermath of the security breach in the most effective way,” he told The Business Times.

Having been contacted by Bybit two hours after the incident occurred, Thanh and his team in Vietnam developed a new tool in the next four hours that could enable the crypto exchange to conduct multi-signature fund transfers from unaffected wallets to restore liquidity.

The system bypassed the crypto exchange’s previous transaction approval process, which used a third-party Web-based interface – one that Verichains had flagged as a security risk. That very weakness, as it turned out, was what the North Korean hackers had targeted.