On Friday night, February 21, 2025, the price chart on the Bybit website can be seen on a computer screen in New York. Image source: AP
The FBI accused North Korea of stealing $1.5 billion worth of digital assets last week, the largest crypto robbery in history, on Wednesday (February 27, 2025).
Dubai-based cryptocurrency exchange Bybit reported last week that it had been robbed 400,000 in Ethereum.
According to the company, the attackers exploited security protocols during the transaction, allowing them to transfer assets to unidentified addresses.
On Wednesday (February 27, 2025), the U.S. government pointed its finger at Pyongyang.
“(North Korea) is responsible for stealing about $1.5 billion in virtual assets from cryptocurrency exchange Bybit,” the FBI said in a public service announcement.
The bureau said a group called Tradertraitor, also known as the Lazarus Group, was behind the theft.
It said they are “going quickly and converting some stolen assets into addresses that are spread across thousands of blockchains with bitcoin and other virtual assets.”
“The assets are expected to be further laundered and eventually converted into fiat currencies,” the FBI added.
A decade ago, the Lazarus Group was accused of hacking Sony Pictures in retaliation for “interviews,” a film that mocked North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s film.
It is also said that this also falls in the $620 million Ethereum robbery in 2022 and the dollar coins on the Ronin network in 2022, the largest crypto theft in history.
In December, the United States and Japan blamed it for theft of more than $300 million worth of cryptocurrency from Japan’s Exchange DMM Bitcoin.
North Korea’s cyber front program dates back to at least the mid-1990s, when the country was called “the world’s most prolific cyber speculation” by a cybersecurity company.
According to the 2020 U.S. Military Report, Pyongyang’s plan has developed into a 6,000-person cyber front bureau, the unit known as Bureau 121, which operates from several countries.
Since 2017, a UN team on North Korea’s evasion of sanctions estimates that the country has stolen more than $3 billion in cryptocurrency.
Most of the hacking is reportedly directed by the Pyongyang Reconnaissance General, its main foreign intelligence agency.
The stolen money helped fund the country’s nuclear weapons program, the panel said.
publishing – February 27, 2025 at 12:33 pm IST
