North Korea’s Lazarus Group: $47M Cryptocurrency Theft

Lazarus Group, the North Korea-based hacking collective, accounts for a huge $47 million in cryptocurrency theft which includes Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC), Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) ($1.9 million), BNB (CRYPTO: BNB) ($1.1 million) and some stablecoins ($640,000) including Binance USD (CRYPTO: BUSD), as reported by CoinTelegraph.

However, the majority of the holdings consist of Bitcoin ($42.5 million).

The data is collected on Dune Analytics from 21.co, the parent company of 21Shares.

This is a drop from the $86 million that Lazarus held on Sep. 6, which is after a Stake.com hack in which Lazarus was accused. Also, Lazarus attacked the crypto exchange firm CoinEx reporting the latte’s loss of at least $55 million. “The group is also held responsible for the Alphapo, CoinsPaid, and Atomic Wallet hacks leading to more than $200 million that it stole in 2023,” said Benzinga. 

The Dune dashboard tracks 295 wallets that are owned by the hacking group and are identified by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and Office of Foreign Assets Control. 21.co believes that the value of crypto holdings by Lazarus Group could be significantly higher than what is reported.

In Focus: North Korea

Separately, Chainalysis data indicates that North Korea-linked hackers saw a drop of 80% in crypto thefts from 2022 levels. As of mid-September, the hackers stole $340.4 million in crypto, which is significantly lower than the $1.65 billion reported in stolen digital assets in 2022. Notably, the group’s loot does not consist of any privacy coins which are difficult to trace.

TRM Labs, blockchain intelligence firm, states that from January to Aug. 18, 2023, North Korea-linked hackers have stolen $200 million worth of crypto which represents almost 20% of all stolen crypto.

© 2023 Zenger News.com. Zenger News does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

Produced in association with Benzinga

Edited by Judy J. Rotich and Newsdesk Manager