$571 Million Cryptoassests Stolen by North Korean group Lazarus Hackers

By Swati Kishore

Among all crypto-jacking incidents occurring in the world, one from North Korea has recently turned up.

Cryptocurrency exchanges are exploited by cybersecurity attacks by Lazarus group reaping 571 million dollars for their massive gains since January. Lazarus group, also recognized as the hidden cobra, is responsible for series of regular and devastating attacks against manufacturing, media and financial institutions including 15 countries since 2009. They are the most successful and profitable hacker organization ever.

A report from Group-IB, an award-winning and leading cybersecurity company in the world, through their annual section in The Next Web on Friday detailed that Lazarus, North Korea’s hack group, stole more than half a billion dollars of crypto coins since January this year. Believers expect that Lazarus target is on the crypto market so that world could not isolate from the global financial system.

This infamous hacker focuses on AppleJesus (a malware campaign) effective in regards to Mac users, Haobao a bitcoin stealing spear phishing campaign and social engineering. The source of attackers is mainly through attachments by email, the TNW report states.

Group-IB reports also confirm:

“In the first half of 2018, $0.55 million to $18 million were registered as financial loss whereas 51% attacks were detected in 2017.”

The amount of $882 million cryptocurrency was abducted from 2017 to 2018 by cyber attackers, the report from Group IB confirmed. Also, the fund raised up to 10 percent by the ICO (initial coin offering) platforms have been used as the most common place of attack.  A majority of 56% of stolen ICO funds is lost to phishing.

McAfee, Global cybersecurity reported:

“In 2018, a rise of 629 percent to 2.9 million coin miner malware from 400,000 total known samples in Q4 2017 was noted”.

In regards to ongoing crypto crime issues South Korean officials contributed by saying in February this year, tens of millions of dollars crypto money was stolen by North Korean hackers in 2017.

According to Security researchers, attacks on Financial Institutions and bitcoin exchanges are elevated by North Korea-based advanced persistent threat (APT) groups. Investigations on $500 million coin check attack are made by Lazarus or some other hacking groups, is done by the North Korean National Intelligence Service.