North Korea computer pirates charge hundreds of millions of $ 1.5 billion hack bybit

Computer pirates designed for working for the North Korean regime have successfully charged at least $ 300 million (£ 232 million) of their crypto attraction of $ 1.5 billion records.

The criminals, known as Lázaro Group, slid the huge journey of digital tokens on a crist out of Crypto Exchange bybit Two weeks ago.

Since then, it has been a cat and mouse game tracking and blocking computer pirates to successfully convert the cryptography in usable cash.

Experts say that the infamous piracy team is working almost 24 hours a day, potentially channeling money in the military development of the regime.

“Every minute is important for computer pirates who try to confuse the trail of money and are extremely sophisticated in what they are doing,” says Dr. Tom Robinson, co -founder of elliptical cryptographic researchers.

Of all the criminal actors involved in the cryptographic currency, North Korea is the best in cryptography washing, says Dr. Robinson.

“I imagine that they have a complete room of people who do this using automated tools and years of experience. We can also see for their activity that only take a few hours of rest every day, possibly working in shifts to convert cash cryptography.”

The elliptical analysis has bybit, which says that 20% of the funds are now “gone dark”, which means that it is unlikely to recover.

The United States and allies accuse North Koreans of carrying out dozens of hacks in recent years to finance the regime’s military and nuclear development.

On February 21, criminals pirate one of the Bybit’s suppliers to secretly alter the direction of the digital wallet to which 401,000 Ethereum crypto coins were sent.

Bybit thought he was transferring the funds to his own digital wallet, but instead sent everything to computer pirates.

Ben Zhou, the Bybit CEO, assured customers that none of their funds had been taken.

Since then, the firm has replaced the robbed currencies with loans from investors, but is in the words of Zhou “war pound against Lazarus.”

The Bybit’s rewards program in Lázaro is encouraging the public members to track the stolen funds and make them freeze when possible.

All cryptographic transactions are shown in a public block chain, so it is possible to track money as the Lazarus group moves it.

If computer pirates try to use a conventional cryptographic service to try to convert coins into normal money such as dollars, the company can freeze cryptographic currencies if you think they are linked to crime.

Until now, 20 people have shared more than $ 4 million in rewards for successfully identifying $ 40 million of stolen money and alerting cryptographic companies to block transfers.

But experts are careless about the possibilities that the rest of the funds are recoverable, given North Korea’s experience in hacking and washing money.

“North Korea is a very closed system and a closed economy, so they created a successful industry to hack and wash and they don’t care about the negative impression of cybercrime,” said Dorit Dor of the Ceck Point cyber security company.

Another problem is that not all cryptographic companies are as willing to help as others.

Bybit is accusing Crypto Exchange Exchch and others not to stop the charged criminals.

More than $ 90 million have been successfully channeled through this exchange.

But by email, the elusive owner of Exch – Johann Roberts – played that.

He admits that they initially stopped the funds, since his company is in a long data dispute with Bybit, and says that his team was not sure that the coins were definitely the trick.

He says that he is now cooperating, but argues that conventional companies that identify cryptographic clients are abandoning the private and anonymous benefits of cryptographic currency.

North Korea has never admitted to being behind the Lázaro Group, but it is believed to be the only country in the world using its piracy powers for financial profits.

Previously, the computer pirates of the Lazarus group attacked the banks, but in the last five years they specialized in attacking cryptocurrency companies.

The industry is less protected with fewer mechanisms to prevent the laven from.

Recent tricks linked to North Korea include:

• The 2019 Hackbit on Upbit for $ 41 million
• The robbery of Crypto of $ 275 of $ 275 by Exchange Kucoin (most of the funds were recovered)
• The attack of the Ronin 2022 bridge that saw the computer pirates win with $ 600 million in cryptography
• Approximately $ 100 million in Crypto were stolen in an attack against the atomic wallet in 2023

In 2020, the United States added to the North Koreans accused of being part of the Lázaro Group of their list of cybernetics more sought after. But the possibilities that people are arrested are extremely thin unless they leave their country.