Report Reveals North Korea’s ‘Lazarus’ as $240 Million Hackers

17 Sep 2023 by Rory Kejzerko 1 min read

When it comes to crypto hacks- something central banks have outlined as a major drawback of DeFi - North Korea’s Lazarus group is up there as one of the most notorious.

Further, with a flurry of hacks taking place over the past three months, blockchain surveillance company Elliptic has published a report stating that Lazarus is responsible for several. More specifically, it states that the group has taken $240 million worth of crypto from victims over the last 104 days.

With help from community on-chain sleuth ZachBXT, Lazarus’s guilt was revealed through the fact that it had ‘accidentally connected their address’ to wallets associated with the $41 million exploit of crypto casino Stake, as well as the more-recent $54 million exploit of crypto exchange CoinEx (with the majority of tokens involved in the latter said to be from the Tron (TRX) and Polygon (MATIC) blockchains).

Upon further investigations, Lazarus’s associated wallets have also been found to be involved in the $100 million hack of Atomic Wallet back in June.

And in making up the remaining $45 million of stolen tokens, Elliptic reports that Lazarus hacked crypto payment platforms CoinsPaid and Alphapo - in late June and July, respectively.

As this list of victims suggests, Elliptic notes that Lazarus has re-targeted its crosshairs towards centralised exchanges. Here, the reason for this is thought to be because social engineering tactics - i.e. manipulating, influencing, or deceiving victims in order to gain control over computer systems/financial information - are more effective when applied in centralised contexts (as opposed to trying to hack decentralised custodial wallets).

Although a reply is probably not on the cards, CoinEx has responded to the report by sending a public letter to Lazarus via X, wherein it asks to negotiate a bug bounty and return of funds via email or blockchain communications.

#CoinExResponseUpdate - CoinEx’s Open Letter to Hackers

To Hackers,

We entered this industry with a vision of “making the world a better place via blockchain.” Like millions of blockchain enthusiasts who share the same faith, we strive to build an open, interconnected, and…
— CoinEx Global (@coinexcom) September 15, 2023