As per reports, the FBI revealed that the agency identified the Lazarus Group as the culprits of the $100M Harmony Hack.
The Lazarus Group is a North Korean hacker group thought to be funded by dictator Kim Jung Un's dictatorship.
Binance founder CZ stated that addresses linked to the hack transferred the stolen funds to the crypto exchange Huobi.
Of the $100 million Harmony Bridge Hack that occurred in June 2022.
The North Korean-linked cyber group had long been suspected of engaging in the attack. However, authorities had not acknowledged their involvement until today.
According to a Jan. 23 statement, the FBI said that “via our investigation, we were able to identify that the Lazarus Group and APT38, are accountable. The groups performed the theft of $100 million of virtual currency from Harmony's Horizon bridge.”
The Harmony Bridge hack in 2022 was sparked by security flaws in Harmony's Horizon Ethereum bridge. This allowed the cyber attackers to steal a lot of assets stored in the bridge via 11 transactions.
The FBI also stated that the North Korean hackers began transferring approximately $60 million in stolen assets earlier this month. The transfers were made via the Ethereum-based privacy protocol RAILGUN. ZachXBT, a blockchain expert, mentioned this on Twitter on January 16.
Notably, Binance discovered that hackers were attempting to launder funds through the Huobi cryptocurrency exchange. CEO Changpeng Zhao said the company has frozen those assets and is retrieving the digital assets deposited by the hackers.
The FBI said, on January 13, 2023, North Korean cyber criminals employed RAILGUN to launder over $60 million in Ethereum seized during the June 2022 robbery. The agency added that a portion of these funds was frozen in collaboration with certain virtual asset service providers.
The FBI's cyber and virtual assets sections have continued "to identify and disrupt North Korea's theft and laundering of virtual currency. The groups utilized those funds to finance North Korea's ballistic missile and Weapons of Mass Destruction program."
Additionally, the US Attorney's Office and the US Justice Department's crypto branch are also attempting to uncover and disrupt North Korean virtual currency theft and laundering.
Also read: Gemini Exchange Cuts 10% Staff, Is Bankruptcy Next?
