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The hackers who work for the North Korean regime have managed to collect at least $ 300 million (232 million pounds sterling) of their recording crypto robbery of $ 1.5 billion.
The criminals, known as Lazarus Group, slipped the huge transport of digital tokens in a hacking on the crypto exchange report two weeks ago.
Since then, it’s a cat and mouse game to follow and prevent hackers from successfully converting the crypto into usable money.
Experts say that the infamous hacking team works almost 24 hours a day – potentially channeling money in the regime’s military development.
“Each minute is important for the pirates who try to confuse the monetary track and they are extremely sophisticated in what they do,” said Dr. Tom Robinson, co-founder of the Elliptic Cryptic investigators.
Among all the criminal actors involved in cryptocurrency, North Korea is the best for whitening crypto, says Dr. Robinson.
“I imagine that they have a whole room of people who do this using automated tools and years of experience. We can also see in their activity that they only take a few hours of break every day, perhaps working in teams to have the crypto transform into species.”
Elliptic’s analysis is recognized with the balance sheet, which says that 20% of funds have now become “dark”, which means that it is unlikely that it is never recovered.
The United States and Allies accuse North Koreans of having carried out dozens of hacks in recent years to finance the military and nuclear development of the regime.
On February 21, criminals hacked one of the suppliers of Bybit to secretly modify the address of the digital portfolio to which 401,000 Ethereum cryptography parts were sent.
Bybit thought he was transferring the funds to his own digital portfolio, but rather sent all this to the pirates.
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The CEO of Bybit, Ben Zhou, hopes to recover some of the stolen funds thanks to a bonus project
Ben Zhou, the CEO of Bybit, assured customers that none of their funds had been taken.
The company has since reconstituted the stolen parts with investor loans, but is in the words of Zhou “Waging War on Lazarus”.
The Bounty program by Bybit Lazarus encourages public members to trace stolen funds and include them as much as possible.
All cryptographic transactions are displayed on a public blockchain, so it is possible to follow the money because it is moved by the Lazare group.
If pirates try to use a consumer cryptography service to try to transform parts into normal money like dollars, crypto parts can be frozen by the company if they think they are linked to crime.
Until now, 20 people have shared more than $ 4 million in awards for having managed to identify $ 40 million in stolen money and alert cryptographic companies to block transfers.
But the experts are likely that the rest of the funds be recovered, given the North Korean expertise in hacking and money laundering.
“North Korea is a very closed system and a closed economy, so they have created a successful industry for hacking and money laundering and they do not care about the negative impression of cybercrime,” said Drit Dor of the Check Point cybersecurity company.
Another problem is that all cryptographic companies are not as ready to help as others.
Crypto Exchange Exch is accused by Bybit and others not to prevent criminals from withdrawn.
More than $ 90 million has been successfully channeled thanks to this exchange.
But by email, the elusive owner of Exch – Johann Roberts – challenged him.
He admits that they have not initially arrested the funds, because his business is in a long -standing dispute with Bybit, and he says that his team was not sure that the documents were definitively from the hack.
He says he cooperates now, but argues that traditional companies that identify cryptographic customers abandon the private and anonymous advantages of cryptocurrency.
FBI
Park Jin Hyok is one of the alleged hackers of the Lazare group
North Korea has never admitted to being behind the Lazare group, but we think we are the only country in the world using its hacking powers for financial purposes.
Previously, the hackers of Lazarus groups have targeted the banks, but in the past five years specialize in the attack on cryptocurrency companies.
The industry is less well protected with fewer mechanisms in place to prevent them from whitening funds.
Recent hacks linked to North Korea include:
Piracy 2019 on Upbit for $ 41 million The flight of $ 275 million in Crypto from Exchange Kucoin (most of the funds have been recovered) the attack on Ronin Bridge 2022 which has seen hackers struggling with $ 600 million in crypto-Approximation of $ 100 million in crypto was stolen in an atomic portfolio $ 2023.
In 2020, the United States added the North Koreans accused of being part of the Lazare group to its most sought-after list. But the chances that individuals are arrested are extremely slim unless they leave their country.
