New data shows that the North Korean Lazarus Group has now amassed over $40 million in bitcoin, ether, BNB, and various stablecoins.
Lazarus Group hackers hold over $40 million in cryptocurrencies
North Korean hacker collective Lazarus Group has a whopping $47 million in cryptocurrencies, according to data collected by Dune Analytics. More precisely, it’s $42.5 million in BTC and $1.9 million in ETH. In addition, it has $1.1 million in BNB and $640,000 in stablecoins, mostly BUSD.
Interestingly, the value of cryptocurrencies held has fallen from $86 million (data from early September this year). This shows that hackers have sold some of the digital assets.
Dune analysts are tracking 295 wallets identified by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as belonging to a North Korean hacking group.
Surprisingly, the group does not own any private coins like monero or zcash, which are much harder to track.
The last transaction involving Lazarus wallets was recorded on September 20.
The target of hackers?
On September 13, media reported that Lazarus Group carried out an attack on the CoinEx cryptocurrency exchange. As a result, at least $55 million in digital assets were lost. The FBI also blames Lazarus for the hacks of Stake, Alphapo, CoinsPaid, and Atomic Wallet, which together brought criminals more than $200 million.
Meanwhile, Chainalytic reported that the scale of cryptocurrency theft by hackers linked to North Korea has dropped by as much as 80% compared to 2022. Since mid-September, these criminals have stolen cryptocurrencies worth a total of $340.4 million. This is small compared to the record in 2022, when as much as $1.65 billion in digital currencies and tokens was seized.
Late last week, US federal authorities warned of a “significant risk” of potential attacks by the Lazarus Group on US healthcare and public health entities.
But why do North Korean hackers steal cryptocurrencies? They are probably doing so on the orders of the country’s authorities. The Kim regime needs digital assets because they are used to circumvent sanctions imposed on it by the US. Politicians are probably using bitcoins to finance their nuclear program, among other things.
