FBI says hacker groups linked to North Korea are behind US crypto heist

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(Reuters) – Two North Korean-associated hacker groups, the Lazarus Group and APT38, were responsible for last June theft of $100 million from U.S. crypto firm Harmony’s Horizon bridge, the Federal government said on Monday. Bureau of Investigation.

On Jan. 13, the groups used a privacy protocol called Railgun to launder more than $60 million of stolen Ethereum during the robbery in June, the FBI said in a statement.

Some of the stolen Ethereum was then sent to several virtual asset providers and converted into bitcoin, the FBI said.

The FBI said North Korea’s theft and laundering of virtual currency is used to support its ballistic missile and weapons of mass destruction programs.

In June last year, California-based Harmony said a heist had hit its Horizon Bridge, which was the underlying software used by digital tokens such as bitcoin and ether to transfer crypto. between different blockchains.

In June, Reuters reported that North Korean hackers were most likely behind the attack on Harmony, citing three digital investigative firms.

Harmony develops blockchains for decentralized finance — peer-to-peer sites that offer loans and other services without traditional custodians like banks — and non-fungible tokens.

(Reporting by Sneha Bhowmik in Bengaluru; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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