Capital Economy, Business and Finance
A group of North Korean hackers has turned at least $300 million worth of stolen cryptocurrency into unrecoverable funds – meaning they can spend it, and the crypto exchange from which they took it can’t get it back.
The Lazarus Group, linked to North Korea by the FBI, hacked the Dubai-based Bybit exchange last month, stealing Ethereum coins worth $1.5 billion by breaking into the exchange’s security system and sending its CEO, Ben Zhou, a fake message requesting that he approve a single large transaction.
He did, to be told by his chief financial officer half an hour later: “All of the Ethereum is gone.”
Zhou said that every dollar stolen was covered but the crypto sector took a hit and Bitcoin lost 20 per cent of its value.
Bybit had used off-the-shelf security software called Safe, which Zhou now regrets.
The expectation is the lost money will be spent by North Korea on weapons.
