The Federal Bureau of Investigation says hackers with connections to North Korea are behind the largest publicly known cryptocurrency theft ever recorded.
Hackers reportedly stole around $1.5 billion worth of Ethereum from Dubai-based firm Bybit, one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges. The FBI says the hackers acquired the digital token “through the dissemination of cryptocurrency trading applications that were modified to include malware that facilitates theft of cryptocurrency,” per ABC News.
Since the digital currency theft, the FBI says the perpetrators moved quickly to conceal traces of the theft by converting it to other coins and moving it to different blockchain addresses.
“TraderTraitor actors are proceeding rapidly and have converted some of the stolen assets to Bitcoin and other virtual assets dispersed across thousands of addresses on multiple blockchains,” the FBI said in an announcement on February 26.
“It is expected these assets will be further laundered and eventually converted to fiat currency.”
So far, state media outlets in North Korea have been silent on the event, neither acknowledging the theft nor the accusation.
According to South Korea’s spy agency, the Hermit Kingdom has stolen an estimated $1.2 billion in crypto and other digital assets over the past five years.
Separately, a U.N. experts panel said it was looking into dozens of cyberattacks by North Korea between 2017 and 2023. In total, around $3 billion was stolen to “reportedly help to fund the country’s development of weapons of mass destruction,” according to the panel.
In response to the theft, Bybit offered a bounty to those who help retrieve the stolen funds.
“As part of the investigation and recovery efforts, Bybit is pledging 10% of recovered funds to reward ethical cyber and network security experts who play an active role in retrieving the stolen cryptocurrencies in the incident,” read the February 22 post on X.