US probe agency FBI has accused North Korea of siphoning nearly $1.5 billion from Dubai-based crypto exchange Bybit.
The exchange lost the massive haul when hackers, now believed to be backed by the North Korean government, took hold of an ether wallet and transferred coins from it on February 21, executing probably the biggest digital heist ever.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation termed the state-backed actors as 'TraderTraitor.'
"TraderTraitor actors are proceeding rapidly and have converted some of the stolen assets to Bitcoin and other virtual assets dispersed across thousands of addresses on multiple blockchains. It is expected these assets will be further laundered and eventually converted to fiat currency," FBI said in an announcement on Wednesday.
Bybit founder Ben Zhou on X has announced a bounty on tracing funds and a fight against Lazarus – a hacker group known to be associated with North Korea.
The latest heist comes on the heels of several such breaches – 47 in 2024 alone – totalling a funneling of $1.3 billion, all attributed by authorities to Lazarus or other North Korean actors.
"Hackers linked to North Korea have become notorious for their sophisticated and relentless tradecraft, often employing advanced malware, social engineering, and cryptocurrency theft to fund state-sponsored operations and circumvent international sanctions," crypto analysis firm Chainalysis said in a report.
The UN authorities monitoring sanctions against North Korea have claimed that the country has used the loot to bankroll its nuclear programmes and fuel war in Ukraine by supplying arms and ammunition to Russia.
Immediately after the heist, Zhou had claimed that Bybit was solvent and the company would be able to offset the loss one to one.
Image Source: Unsplash
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