North Korea may be itching to sell $40m of purloined Bitcoin

4 weeks ago

Lazarus Group, nan infamous cryptocurrency thieves backed by North Korea, whitethorn effort to liquidate a stash of stolen Bitcoin worthy much than $40 million, according to nan FBI.

In an alert issued connected Tuesday, agents said they tracked nan purloined cryptocurrency complete nan past 24 hours. During nan investigation, they recovered that Kim Jong Un's cyber goons, which nan FBI calls TraderTraitor and is much wide known arsenic Lazarus Group, moved astir 1,580 Bitcoin from respective cryptocurrency heists, and are presently holding those costs successful these six wallets:

3LU8wRu4ZnXP4UM8Yo6kkTiGHM9BubgyiG
39idqitN9tYNmq3wYanwg3MitFB5TZCjWu
3AAUBbKJorvNhEUFhKnep9YTwmZECxE4Nk
3PjNaSeP8GzLjGeu51JR19Q2Lu8W2Te9oc
3NbdrezMzAVVfXv5MTQJn4hWqKhYCTCJoB
34VXKa5upLWVYMXmgid6bFM4BaQXHxSUoL

One BTC is worthy $26,500 astatine clip of writing.

Uncle Sam has urged organizations to not judge transactions pinch nan supra wallets, and said it believes nan pack whitethorn effort to rate out.

"Private assemblage entities should analyse nan blockchain information associated pinch these addresses and beryllium vigilant successful guarding against transactions straight with, aliases derived from, nan addresses," nan FBI warned.

North Korean hackers had entree to Russian rocket shaper for months, opportunity researchers
North Korea's Lazarus Group linked to Atomic Wallet heist
FBI catches up pinch infosec and crypto communities, blames Lazarus Group for $100 cardinal heist
US bans North Korean outsourcer and its feisty freelancers

This and different DPRK-sponsored groups are celebrated for plotting and pulling disconnected multi-million crypto heists, laundering nan money, and past sending it backmost to North Korea to money nan regime's atomic and rocket improvement programs.

Most recently, connected June 22 Lazarus Group stole $60 million successful virtual rate from Alphapo, which processes payments for gambling services. On nan aforesaid day, nan thieves pocketed $37 cardinal successful cryptocurrency from CoinsPaid, and earlier that period they drained $100 cardinal from Atomic Wallet accounts.

The North Korean pack was besides down past year's multi-million attacks connected Harmony's Horizon bridge ($100 million) and Ronin Network, wherever they stole astir $620 cardinal successful nan largest-ever virtual rate heist.

Uncle Sam has antecedently put a $5 cardinal bounty connected accusation that helps disrupt North Korea's cryptocurrency theft, cyber-espionage, and different illicit state-backed activities.

And successful April, nan Feds indicted 3 men for their roles successful money-laundering conspiracies designed to transmission ill-gotten cryptocurrency gains into North Korea's weapons programs.

Earlier this period private-sector information researchers said Lazarus Group and ScarCruft, different North Korean-backed crew, were down a six-month-long cyber-espionage run to steal Russian subject tech.

According to SentinelOne, nan criminals collapsed into Russian rocket and outer developer NPO Mashinostoyeniya's soul systems, compromised nan defense firm's email server, and deployed a Windows backdoor, OpenCarrot, which enables full takeover of infected machines and coordination crossed an infected network. ®