Again, N. Korea Implicated in a $4M Worth of Ethereum Theft

North Korea is on the news again for yet another wrong reason. Sometime last month, the North Korean government got itself entangled in a multi-million dollar crypto hack targeting Harmony Bridge: a United States crypto exchange. Today, the FBI has again intercepted another crypto-related crime, which involves laundering a little over $4M in ETH through a hacking group sponsored by the N. Korean government.

The FBI has shared the details of this recent event in an official statement distributed to major media houses. This report was a follow-up of a report that mentioned a hacking group called the APT38 (or Lazarus) that penetrated Horizon Bridge’s account, carting away over $100M in ETH.

Ever since the incident, the agency said several other hacking groups had adopted this same strategy which they called the peel chain layering procedure. This procedure is designed to enable hackers to launder as many cryptocurrencies as they can through a gradual transfer process without getting noticed.

 According to the FBI report, these hackers keep transferring the crypto in what will appear as a small transaction to a single wallet through a new crypto address until the laundering process is done hence, unnoticed. They also revealed that these new crypto addresses used for such a process are usually created on regular cryptocurrency exchange platforms.

While commenting on the incident, AML departments said this process could easily be noticed on crypto exchange platforms. They also noted that transactions like this can easily trigger suspicion and requires urgent attention by the authorities.

In yet another report, a total of $18M worth of Ethereum was also stolen on January 29th from ZachXBT. Investigations also had it that the hack was perpetrated by the same hacking group that had attacked Harmony Bridge exchange. These attacks have been linked to the North Korean government, which was accused of financing these activities to finance their many nuclear weapon projects.

Before the hack, observers said 11,304 ETH, which amounted to $17.7M, were laundered. It was gathered that the funds were transferred in smaller amounts, using not more than six crypto trading channels. ZachXBT had told the media that they contacted the authorities with the hope that they would help intercept or freeze those funds but to no avail. 

Speaking on the missing $4M worth of ETH, analysts say that the amount was too big not to be noticed by the authorities or any IT expert. They also noted that it was too early to conclude that the funds were gone and advised both Harmony and ZachXBT to wait a little longer to see if the crypto assets would be returned thus, investigation is still on.

According to a report by the United Nations on North Korean hackers, they benefited greatly in the past year, 2022, than any other year. It also said that these hackers have carried out more attacks in this N. Korean regime than in any other. The report also confirmed the accusations by many observers that the stolen funds are used to fund the numerous nuclear weapon projects in that country.

It also revealed that the total cryptocurrency stolen by these hackers went from $630M last year to over $1B this year. It has also been established that most of these stolen cryptocurrencies are hard to trace. Meanwhile, cybersecurity experts believe that authorities need advanced cybersecurity equipment to trace such activities.

Again, in their report, the UN also warned that these hackers from North Korea are getting more sophisticated by the day, judging by the effectiveness of their operations last year and this year. The United Nations, through the United Nations Security Council, also revealed that they are not only targeting financial institutions but other valuables like advanced weapon programs are also targeted.

Meanwhile, analysts have warned governments and top financial firms to brace their cybersecurity infrastructures because the group is not slowing down.

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