North Korea’s Lazarus Group Launders $900 Million in Cryptocurrency

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Oct 06, 2023NewsroomCyber Crime / Cryptocurrency

As a lot as $7 billion in cryptocurrency has been illicitly laundered by means of cross-chain crime, with the North Korea-linked Lazarus Group linked to the theft of roughly $900 million of these proceeds between July 2022 and July of this 12 months.

“As conventional entities akin to mixers proceed to be topic to seizures and sanctions scrutiny, the crypto crime displacement to chain- or asset-hopping typologies can also be on the rise,” blockchain analytics agency Elliptic mentioned in a brand new report revealed this week.

Cross-chain crime refers back to the conversion of crypto belongings from one token or blockchain to a different, usually in fast succession, in an try and obfuscate their origin, making it a profitable methodology for cash laundering for crypto thefts and an alternative choice to Acc approaches like mixers.

In keeping with knowledge gathered by Elliptic, the Lazarus Group’s use of cross-chain bridges contributed to a majority of the 111% improve within the proportion of funds despatched through such providers.

The North Korean hacking crew is estimated to have stolen practically $240 million in cryptocurrency since June 2023, following a collection of assaults focusing on Atomic Pockets ($100 million), CoinsPaid ($37.3 million), Alphapo ($60 million), Stake.com ($41 million), and CoinEx ($31 million).

“The range, quantity, and eccentricity in implementation of Lazarus campaigns outline this group, in addition to that it performs all three pillars of cybercriminal actions: cyber espionage, cyber sabotage, and pursuit of economic acquire,” ESET mentioned of the risk actor late final month.

The risk actor has additionally been linked to using Avalanche Bridge to deposit greater than 9,500 bitcoin, whereas concurrently using cross-chain options to maneuver among the plundered belongings.

“As is evidenced by the belongings ending up on the identical blockchain on quite a few events, these transactions haven’t any legit enterprise objective aside from to obfuscate their origin,” Elliptic mentioned. “Bridging back-and-forth for the sake of obfuscation – i.e. ‘chain-hopping’ – is now a acknowledged cash laundering typology.”

The disclosure comes as South Korea’s Nationwide Intelligence Service (NIS) has warned of North Korea attacking its shipbuilding sector for the reason that begin of the 12 months.

“The hacking strategies primarily utilized by North Korean hacking organizations have been to occupy and bypass the PCs of IT upkeep corporations, and to put in malicious code after distributing phishing emails to inside staff,” the company mentioned.

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