Crypto Opinions & News Crypto exchanges freeze accounts tied to North Korea’s notorious Lazarus Group

[Stopspying]

Content source

https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/17/crypto_exchanges_freeze_lazarus_group/

"Two cryptocurrency exchanges have frozen accounts identified as having been used by North Korea’s notorious Lazarus Group.
This story starts with a crypto researcher who goes by “ZachXBT” and late last week spotted an entity called “Lazarus Group” moving 41,000 ETH “from the Harmony Bridge hack through Railgun on Jan 13-14 2023 before depositing funds on three exchanges.”

1/2 North Korea’s Lazarus Group had a very busy weekend moving $63.5m (~41000 ETH) from the Harmony bridge hack through Railgun before consolidating funds and depositing on three different exchanges. pic.twitter.com/huDumaJeSh
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) January 15, 2023

The Harmony bridge was a crypto-transfer service that was attacked in June 2022, with around $100m of crypto lost as a result of the attack.
Analysts quickly identified Lazarus Group as the sort of entity that could be interested in attacking Harmony.
Lazarus Group is identified suspected of being a cybercrime crew run by the government of North Korea and is infamous for the WannaCry ransomware, attacking Sony Pictures and stealing secrets from energy companies.
It later moved on to crypto heists and has been fingered for the theft of $620 million of crypto from game developer Sky Mavis, publisher of a crypto-centric game named Axie Infinity.
North Korea steals crypto because sanctions make it hard for the rogue nation to access fiat currencies. The nation’s murderous regime conducts wholesale human rights abuses of its citizenry but needs funds to pursue the conventional missile and nuclear weapons programs that help to keep its rulers in power by making the cost of seeking regime change unacceptable to nations that oppose its violent autocracy..."

Crypto exchanges freeze accounts tied to North Korea

Well whaddya know, the crypto ecosystem did the right thing by stiffing the WannaCry bandits

www.theregister.com

 

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The Lazarus Group, as the threat actor is typically referred to, has laundered about $100 million in stolen Bitcoin since October 2022 through a single crypto-mixing service called Sinbad. Last year, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced sanctions against the cryptocurrency mixing services Blender and Tornado Cash, which Lazarus had used to launder close to $500 million in illicitly obtained cryptocurrency. The measure was taken after more than $600 million in crypto assets were stolen from Axie Infinity’s cross-chain bridge in a hack later attributed to the North Korean Lazarus group. Hackers often use cryptocurrency mixers/tumblers because, for a fee, they allow hiding the origin and owners of the funds by blending the assets of a larger number of users.

Lazarus hackers use new mixer to hide $100 million in stolen crypto

North Korean hackers have found a way around U.S.-imposed sanctions to launder the cryptocurrency proceeds from their heists, according to evidence discovered by blockchain analysts.

www.bleepingcomputer.com