North Korean hackers stolen crypto worth $ 1.7 billion in 2022: chain analysis

North Korean hackers stolen crypto worth $ 1.7 billion in 2022: chain analysis

2022 can easily be regarded as the worst year in relation to the securing of cryptocurrencies, since projects of a number of devastating hacks and exploits were exposed to. According to the latest Chainalysis report, which was shared, cryptopotato was stolen from $ 3.8 billion of cryptocurrency companies, with decentralized financing (Defi) the main goal.

In March and October there were enormous tips with $ 732.4 million or $ 775.7 million. The latter was with 32 separate attacks for the largest single month ever for crypto hacking.

Defi target

The defi protocols alone recorded a loss of $ 3.1 billion, making up 82.1 % of all cryptocurrencies stolen by hackers. The number rose from 73.3 % in 2021.

In the meantime, 64 % of the losses especially come from cross-chain-bridge protocols. Hackers have been targeted in recent years because the smart contracts in operation have become huge, centralized depots of funds that support the assets that were bridged into the new chain.

"If a bridge becomes big enough, it is almost certain that every mistake in their underlying intelligent contract code or any other potential weak point is found and exploited by bad actors at some point."

Hacker connected to North Korea, including the cybercriminal syndicate Lazarus Group, reported that they broke their own records last year by the value of 1.7 billion.

chainalysis also pointed out that crypto hacking is a “considerable part” of the country's economy, since total exports in 2020 amount to goods worth $ 142 million. It is no surprise that North Korea's nuclear and ballistic rocket programs are heavily dependent on income from stolen crypto funds.

It was also found that the hackers associated with the East Asian country usually send a large part of the illegally acquired funds to other defi protocols, since such hacks often lead to the fact that large quantities of illiquid tokens are collected that are not noted on central exchanges. Therefore, the hackers fall back on other defi protocols, usually decentralized stock exchanges (Dexs) to exchange assets.

new mixer in the picture

Another trend that the blockchain analysis company found was that hackers connected to North Korea also tend to send large sums of stolen funds to the company Coin Mixer. These hackers move their funds from hacks to mixers "with a much higher rate than funds that are stolen by other individuals or groups".

tornado cash, for example, was used extensively to wash money from hackers connected to North Korea. However, since the OFAC sanctions they seem to have diversified their mixer use, a trend that was more pronounced in the fourth quarter of 2022.

A relatively new custody bitcoin mixer called Lindbad appeared as a vehicle for washing stolen funds, with the first wallets of hackers being observed with connections to North Korea in December 2022. From the aforementioned period until January 2023, these companies sent a total of 1,429.6 Bitcoin worth almost $ 24.2 million for the blender.

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