- The North Korea Team used over 1200 different crypto addresses for hacking.
- As per the Chainalysis team, groups connected to North Korea have stolen about $1 billion from DeFi Protocols.
US authorities claim that North Korean team hacked $30 million worth of cryptocurrency from the play-to-earn game Axie Infinity. And this is not a new thing. Daily theft is widespread, and because of these hacks, most people are having financial hardships.
The North Korea-linked team started withdrawal transactions, the firm claimed, using over 12,000 different crypto addresses to date. The first for 173,600 ether (ETH) and the last for 25.5 million USD Coin (USDC)
The Chainalysis study predicts that in 2022, entities connected to North Korea stole from DeFi protocols roughly $1 billion worth of cryptocurrency. The company’s director of investigations expressed hope that more cryptocurrency stolen by a North Korean hacking team would be found in the future.
Recovery of Hacked Funds
The Ronin Network experiences a breach of more than $600 million in March. The play-to-earn game Axie Infinity does have a sidechain named Ronin Network. According to Chainalysis, the Lazarus Group, a hacker group tied to North Korea acquired five of the nine private keys held by the transaction validators for the cross-chain bridge of the Ronin Network.
As per Plante, the seizures represent roughly 10% of the total funds stolen from Axie Infinit. And Chainalysis had such a hand in them by using advanced tracing techniques. To follow stolen funds to cash out points and dealing directly with law enforcement and industry players to quickly freeze funds.
It was an honor to speak at #AxieCon and share the successful recovery of $30M in crypto that was stolen from the Ronin Bridge. In these hack investigations it is a long road to recovery. But the Axie Infinity community is strong and we will continue to partner in this fight. https://t.co/V0lwrOtThr
— Erin Plante (@eeplante) September 8, 2022
The director of investigations says that the rapid growth in money theft from DeFi protocols, especially cross-chain bridges, is one of the most alarming developments in cryptocurrency crime at the moment.
