$3,000,000,000 Worth of Crypto Stolen by North Korean Hackers in Six Years, Says Cybersecurity Firm

December 4, 2023 The Daily Hodl

North Korean Lazarus Group amasses over $40M in Bitcoin, data reveals

September 25, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin

The North Korean hacking collective has at least $47 million in cryptocurrency, including Bitcoin, Ether, Binance Coin and various stablecoins, including Binance USD.

North Korean hacking collective Lazarus Group holds a whopping $47 million in cryptocurrency, most of which is in Bitcoin (BTC), new data shows.

According to data collated on Dune Analytics from 21.co — the parent company of 21Shares — wallets associated with the Lazarus Group currently hold around $47 million worth of digital assets, including $42.5 million in Bitcoin, $1.9 million in Ether (ETH), $1.1 million in Binance Coin (BNB) and an additional $640,000 in stablecoins, primarily BUSD.

However, the amount of crypto held appears to have dropped from the $86 million the group held on Sept. 6, a few days after the Stake.com hack in which Lazarus was implicated.

The Dune dashboard tracks 295 wallets identified by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as being owned by the hacking group, it noted.

*Lazarus Group crypto holdings. Source:* *Dune Analytics*

Surprisingly, the group does not hold any privacy coins such as Monero (XMR), Dash, or Zcash (ZEC) which are arguably much harder to trace.

Meanwhile, Lazarus crypto wallets are still highly active with the most recent transaction being recorded on September 20.

21.co also noted that the group’s holdings are likely to be much higher than what has been reported. “We should note that this is a lower-bound estimation of Lazarus Group’s crypto holdings based on publicly available information,” it stated.

On September 13, Cointelegraph reported that the Lazarus group carried out the attack on crypto exchange CoinEx, which lost at least $55 million.

The FBI has also fingered Lazarus for the Alphapo, CoinsPaid, and Atomic Wallet hacks, which collectively added up to more than $200 million that the group stole in 2023.

However, Chainalysis reported that crypto thefts by North Korea-linked hackers are down a whopping 80% from 2022. As of mid-September, North Korea-linked groups had stolen a total of $340.4 million in crypto, down from a record $1.65 billion in pilfered digital assets in 2022.

Late last week, United States federal authorities warned of "significant risk" for potential attacks on U.S. healthcare and public health sector entities by the Lazarus Group.

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Crypto exploit losses in January see nearly 93% year-on-year decline

February 1, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Attacks

Around $8.8 million was lost to crypto exploits in January, a massive decline from the figures this time last year.

Aside from the bullish crypto market rally in January, there’s been more positive industry news as the month saw a decline in losses from exploits compared to the same time last year.

According to data from blockchain security firm PeckShield on Jan. 31, there were $8.8 million in losses from crypto exploits in January.

There were 24 exploits over the month, with $2.6 million worth of crypto being sent to mixers such as Tornado Cash. The breakdown of assets sent to mixers includes 1,200 Ether (ETH) and around 2,668 BNB (BNB).

The January figures are 92.7% lower than the $121.4 million lost to exploits in January 2022.

#PeckShieldAlert ~24 exploits grabbed $8.8M in January 2023.
As of January 31st, 2023, ~$2.6M worth of stolen funds (~2,668 $BNB & 1,200 $ETH) were transferred into Mixers (TornadoCash, Fixedfloat, and sideshift[.]ai). pic.twitter.com/KlGmDmKFbI
— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) January 31, 2023

PeckShield reported the largest exploit from last month, representing 68% of the total, was the one carried out on the DeFi lending and borrowing platform LendHub which lost $6 million on Jan. 12.

Other notable exploits for the month included Thoreum Finance which lost $580,000 and Midas Capital which was exploited for $650,000 in a flash loan attack.

January’s figure is also down 68% from December 2022 which saw almost $27.3 million in exploit losses, according to PeckShield.

Other losses not included in the data include a $2.6 million rug pull on the FCS BNB Chain token, according to DeFiYield’s Rekt database. There was a further $150,000 lost to fake BONK tokens, and a $200,000 rug pull on the Doglands Metaverse gaming platform, DeFiYield reported.

A phishing attack on the GMX decentralized trading protocol on Jan. 4 also resulted in a victim losing as much as $4 million.

Despite the relatively quiet month, blockchain security company CertiK told Cointelegraph in early January that there is unlikely to be a slowdown in attacks and exploits this year.

The firm also reported that the $62 million in crypto stolen in December was the "lowest monthly figure" in 2022.

As of the end of last year, the ten largest exploits of 2022 resulted in a whopping $2.1 billion stolen from crypto protocols.

Hacking