The FBI has confirmed that the infamous Lazarus Team, a risk actor thought to have robust ties to the North Korean government, was a single of two entities behind the modern Harmony bridge cyberattack (opens in new tab).
Harmony, which will allow users to transfer cryptocurrency tokens amongst normally independent blockchains, was attacked in in June 2022. The then-unknown hackers managed to steal all-around $100 million by exploiting flaws in the protocol’s code, producing off with a total of 85,867 Ether tokens, native to the Ethereum blockchain.
Now, the FBI states it has proof that Lazarus Team, collectively with APT38, was at the rear of the attack.
Funding for missile programs
“FBI Los Angeles and FBI Charlotte—in coordination with the FBI’s Cyber Division, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, the Nationwide Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, and the FBI’s Digital Property Unit—continue to establish and disrupt North Korea’s theft and laundering of virtual currency, which is employed to aid North Korea’s ballistic missile and Weapons of Mass Destruction applications,” the FBI’s announcement suggests.
The legislation enforcement agency also mentioned the group was observed working with RAILGUN on January 13, to launder the stolen cash. RAILGUN is a privateness protocol that the team used to launder additional than $60 million worth of Ether. A section of these funds have been later sent to “several digital asset services providers” and converted to bitcoin. The FBI later reached out to some of these support suppliers and managed to freeze a portion of these funds, it claimed.
The rest were being despatched to a variety of bitcoin addresses.
Lazarus was also at the rear of an assault on the Ronin bridge that took spot before in 2022, exactly where the group stole $625 million in different cryptocurrencies.