Latest Crypto Hacking Carried Out By North Korean Hacker Group Lazarus Group

JAKARTA - A well-known hacker group from North Korea, known as the Lazarus Group, has carried out massive attacks in the cryptocurrency world over the past three months. They managed to rob nearly $3 million worth of cryptocurrencies every day, shocking the global crypto community.

According to an InsideBitcoins report, the state-sponsored group has successfully hacked five crypto companies, with the total stolen cryptocurrencies reaching $293 million (approximately IDR 4.5 trillion) in just 100 days from June 7.

Blockchain analytics company Elliptic even expects Lazarus Group to have stolen total crypto assets worth more than $2 billion since their first theft more than a decade ago.

One of the biggest attacks they've ever carried out was Axie Infinity's Ronin Bridge hack, which cost about $625 million in last year's hack.

It did not stop there, this group was also involved in hacking the Harmony Bridge worth 100 million US dollars (Rp 1.5 trillion) in June 2022 and the hacking of the Nomad Bridge worth 190 million dollars (equivalent to Rp3 trillion) just a month later.

Let's briefly look at the five most recent hacks carried out by the Lazarus Group:

The biggest attack occurred on the Atomic Wallet, which resulted in the loss of a crypto asset worth 100 million US dollars or equivalent to Rp1.5 trillion. Initially, it was reported that a loss of US$35 million (Rp537 billion), but after further investigation by Elliptic, it turned out that the amount was larger, reaching Rp1.5 trillion. Lazarus robbed more than 5,000 crypto wallets on the platform.

The following month, Lazarus Group attacked Alphapo, a centralized crypto payment provider for online platforms. Initially, it was reported that they stole 23 million US dollars (Rp353 billion) in various cryptocurrencies. However, further investigations show that the actual amount is 60 million US dollars (Rp921 billion), including TRON and BTC worth 37 million US dollars (Rp568 billion).

The hacker group was also blamed for the loss of at least USD 37 million of around IDR 568 billion from CoinsPaid, an Estonian crypto payment service provider. The company believes that Lazarus Group is planning a bigger attack, although customer funds remain safe.

Earlier this month, the FBI confirmed that Lazarus Group had carried out attacks on Stake.com, an online casino and betting platform. They managed to steal $41 million in this attack, eyeing platform funds on the Ethereum network, BNB Chain, Polygon, and Bitcoin. The FBI attributes the theft to the Lazarus Group known as APT38.

In his latest attack on September 12, the Lazarus group managed to hack the CoinEx crypto exchange. They drained several wallets containing various cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, TRX, Arbitrum, MATIC, and others.

Initially, losses were reported at 27 million US dollars (Rp414 billion), however, this number continued to grow to reach more than 55 million US dollars (Rp844 billion) because more crypto wallets were drained.

These attacks raise their own concerns in the crypto community. It also indicates that the Lazarus Group is still a serious threat to the crypto industry. Further investigations and increased strong internet security systems are essential to protect crypto assets from this kind of attack.