North Korea Lazarus Group Behind Axie Infinity's Ronin Hack Say US Treasury FBI
Categories: Crypto News
The United States Treasury Department has sanctioned an ethereum (ETH) address that it says received coins stolen in the Ronin Bridge hack – and the FBI has claimed that the North Korean Lazarus group of hackers was behind the security breach. The address in question currently contains almost USD 446m worth of ETH and has been particularly busy in the past few days. The sanctions announcement claimed that Lazarus was based in the Potonggang District, of the North Korean capital Pyongyang, a claim also voiced in the past by the FBI.
In an April 14 update to the Ronin newsletter on the hack – originally published just after last month’s hack – the Ronin Network wrote that it was “still in the process of adding additional security measures before redeploying the Ronin Bridge to mitigate future. The blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis backed the claim on Twitter, stating that the address had received ETH 173,600 (currently worth around USD 525m), as well as USD 25.5m worth of the stablecoin USD coin (USDC) “from the Ronin Bridge smart contract during the attack.”
The company added that the crypto industry needed greater “understanding of how [North Korea]-affiliated threat actors exploit crypto,” as well as “better security for DeFi protocols.” North Korean has repeatedly denied that it seeks to hack crypto and has refuted accusations surrounding the Lazarus group, which has previously been accused of masterminding the 2014 hack of Sony Pictures and the 2017 Wannacry ransomware attacks.Pyongyang denies the existence of Lazarus, as well as alleged individual members of the group that have been named by the FBI, including Park Jin-hyok. It has also previously claimed that accusations of crypto theft were “the sort of fabrication that only the United States” was capable of “inventing” – calling the American government “kings” of hacking.
The contribution of North Korean Lazarus Gathering in a hack focusing on Axie Boundlessness' Ronin stage as of my insight cutoff in September 2021. It's conceivable that this occasion happened after that time, and I don't have exceptional data on it.
The Lazarus Gathering is an infamous cybercrime association supposedly connected with North Korean. They have been ensnared in different cyberattacks and hacking efforts, including the 2014 Sony Pictures hack and the WannaCry ransomware assault in 2017. Nonetheless, I can't affirm their association in the particular episode you referenced.
To get the most dependable and cutting-edge data on this, I prescribe alluding to solid news sources or official articulations from pertinent specialists like the US Depository or FBI.