North Korean hackers Lazarus managed to launder all assets, stolen from the Bybit exchange. In just 10 days, they laundered 499,000 ETH worth about $1.5 billion (estimated at the time of the crime). EmberCN analysts reported that most of the cryptocurrency was withdrawn through THORChain protocol, which earned $5.5 million in commissions. Hackers also used other networks: Loopring, ZKSpace, and Avalanche.
Pluto (9R) — an engineer at Nine Realms, the company behind THORChain, initially defended the protocol. He acknowledged that illegal funds were flowing through THORChain, but explained that the team helped implement screening services to track assets. After the number of accusations towards THORChain increased, Pluto has left the project.
The largest crypto theft occurred on February 21. Hackers launched a cyberattack on the Bybit exchange using phishing and social engineering. They managed to steal approximately $1.4 billion in Ethereum (ETH) and other tokens. The Lazarus hackers ended up with more ETH than Vitalik Buterin or the Ethereum Foundation.
Bybit’s management announced a $140 million reward for assistance in refunding funds and introduced a HackBounty program to find possible vulnerabilities in its services.
Source: EmberCN