The FBI attributes to North Korea a record flight of $ 1.5 billion in cryptocurrencies – Liberation
It is the largest known amount ever stolen by cryptocurrency. The FBI allocated this Wednesday, February 26, in a press release to North Korea The flight of $ 1.5 billion in digital assets, discovered last week on the cryptocurrency exchange platform Bybit. Last Friday, the co -founder and manager of this crypto scholarship, Ben Zhou, said on x that« About 400,000 Ethereum (second cryptocurrency in the world, editor's note) » had been stolen during the operation. Ethereum is based on the blockchain, a computer protocol which allows you to record transactions around the world decentralized and theoretically.
The theft is awarded by the FBI to the North Korean organization Traderraitor, a group of North Korean hackers also says « Lazarus Group » which works on behalf of the State. The Lazarus Group « Quickly converted part of the stolen assets bitcoin and other digital active ingredients scattered through thousands of addresses on many blockchains ”, detailed the FBI. From now on, « We expect these assets to be bleached and converted into fiduciary currency », underlined the federal American judicial police service.
The Lazarus group became known about ten years ago when it was accused to have hacked the American production agency Sony Pictures Entertainmenta revenge after the release of the film The interview Who ridiculed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. He would also be behind the flight of Ethereum and Usd Coin worth $ 620 million on the Ronin Network in 2022, at the time already the largest flight of cryptocurrencies in history. In December, the United States and Japan reproached him for a cryptocurrency for a total value of more than $ 300 million on the Japanese exchange platform DMM Bitcoin.
Last year, a group of United Nations experts in the bypass of sanctions by North Korea estimated that the country had stolen more than three billion dollars in cryptocurrencies since 2017. Much of the hacking activity would be led by the general recognition office of Pyongyang, its main foreign intelligence agency. The stolen money helps finance the country's nuclear weapons program, the group of experts said.
The IT war program of North Korea dates back at least in the mid-1990s. According to an American army report in 2020, the North Korean unit of Cyberguerre, the « Bureau 121 », has 6,000 members who also operate from abroad, notably from Belarus, China, India, Malaysia or Russia.
