© Getty ImagesIn June, hackers obtained $100 million worth of crypto assets from Harmony Horizon Bridge. The FBI now alleges that a "cyber actor linked to the DPRK" was behind the theft.
According to the FBI (via The Hacker News), the Lazarus Group is responsible for the June 24 theft, which forced the company to suspend transactions for at least 24 hours.
Harmony's Horizon Bridge may look like an Apex Legends map, but it's actually a fast Layer 1 blockchain that acts as a "bridge" for token transfers between Harmony and the Ethereum, Binance, and Bitcoin networks to : Bridge to her own wallet.
The FBI claims that the Harmony hack was caused by an aggressive malware campaign called TraderTraitor. The FBI, the US Department of the Treasury and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have warned that employees of crypto companies are being subjected to sophisticated methods of "social engineering of victims". Basically, hackers trick victims into downloading malware.
"North Korean cyber actors used RAILGUN, a privacy protocol, to launder over $60 million in Ethereum (ETH) stolen in June 2022," the statement said. Some of the illicit Ethereum "is then sent to various virtual asset service providers and converted into Bitcoins."
The FBI, which works with virtual asset service providers, has reportedly frozen some of the stolen assets. However, the actual number is currently unclear. To date, 11 digital wallets have been reported by the FBI.
"The FBI will continue to identify and combat the DPRK's use of illegal activities, including cybercrime and virtual currency theft, to generate revenue for the regime," the FBI said.
This is not the Lazarus group's first major crypto theft. The same organization responsible for stealing $600 million worth of cryptocurrency from Axie Infinity last April. An FBI spokesperson told PC Gamer at the time that North Korea wanted to commit crypto theft to circumvent US and UN sanctions to fund its weapons program.