The US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) accused on Thursday the North Korean government-associated hackers for the latest in a string of audacious cyber heists tied to Pyongyang in which they stole over $600 million in cryptocurrency last month from a video gaming company.
The FBI said in a statement that they’ve confirmed through its investigation that two cyber actors associated with North Korea – Lazarus Group and APT38 – are responsible for the theft of $620 million worth of Ethereum – a technology platform associated with a type of cryptocurrency – reported on March 29th from a software bridge used for the popular Axie Infinity play-to-earn game.
The hack, which was likely the largest ever in the cryptocurrency world, has targeted the Ronin software bridge, built to reduce the traffic and cost on the Ethereum blockchain caused by the popularity of Axie Infinity.
The bridging technology has found itself under intense fire after more than $1 billion worth of cryptocurrencies were stolen from crypto bridges in a little more than a year.
Vietnam-based developer Sky Mavis, the company that created Axie Infinity -a video game that allows players to earn cryptocurrency – informed that unidentified hackers conducted the heist on the Ronin bridge allowing users to send cryptocurrency from one blockchain to another.
The US Treasury Department on Thursday tied and sanctioned Lazarus Group for the heist, saying that they added an Ethereum wallet address tied to the group to its sanction list.
Their data shows that over $86 million of the stolen cryptocurrency has moved from the wallet through a service called Tornado Cash that allows anonymous token transfers.
According to Chainalysis, a firm that tracks digital currency transactions Lazarus Group has stolen an estimated $1.75 billion worth of cryptocurrency in recent years.
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