The Lazarus Group, also known as APT38, a North Korea-linked hacker group, was implicated in the theft of $100 million from US cryptocurrency firm Harmony’s Horizon Bridge last June, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said Monday. Stated.
On January 13, North Korean cyber actors used a privacy protocol called Railgun to launder more than $60 million in Ethereum stolen in the June theft, the FBI said in a statement.
Some of the stolen Ethereum was then sent to multiple virtual asset providers and converted to Bitcoin, the FBI said.
The FBI said North Korea is stealing and laundering cryptocurrencies to support its ballistic missile and weapons of mass destruction programs.
Last June, California-based Harmony said a robbery hit Horizon Bridge, the underlying software used by digital tokens such as Bitcoin and Ether to transfer crypto between different blockchains. .
Reuters reported in June that North Korean hackers were most likely behind the attack on Harmony, citing three digital research firms.
Harmony is developing blockchains for decentralized finance (peer-to-peer sites that offer loans and other services without traditional gatekeepers like banks) and non-fungible tokens.