FBI confirms: North Korea behind the $100 million Harmony hack

The FBI announced on Monday that the North Korean hacker organization Lazarus Group was responsible for the $100 million hack of the Harmony Protocol last June. The FBI says it was almost certain the North Korean group was behind it after laundering more than $60 million in Ether on January 13. In addition to the Lazarus Group, another North Korean group called APT38 also participated in the hack.

North Korea uses the stolen money to finance missiles

In an attempt to cover their tracks, the hackers used a privacy program called ‘RAILGUN’ during their hack. However, some of the money was frozen and reclaimed by crypto exchanges when the hackers tried to exchange the stolen tokens for Bitcoin.

Yet the North Korean groups still own tens of millions of dollars worth of hacked crypto tokens. But the FBI says they will do everything they can to stop North Korea from hacking and laundering cryptocurrencies. Especially since the country uses the money to fund ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction, so tells the FBI.

Past hacks from the Lazarus Group

Immediately after the Harmony hack in June, several blockchain analysts already linked the hack to the Lazarus Group using a combination of on-chain detective work and comparisons to previous hacks committed by the group. While the US government has previously spoken about the threat from Lazarus Group, it has not formally charged the group with responsibility for the Harmony hack until today.

The hack targeted a cross-chain bridge connecting Harmony to Ethereum, Bitcoin and the Binance Chain. And that Lazarus was behind this was a bit to be expected. The North Korean group has previously carried out a similar hack. This was about the Ronin Network hack, an Ethereum sidechain used by Axie Infinity. No less than $622 million was stolen in this hack.

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Since 2017, North Korean hacker groups including Lazarus Group and APT38 have, according to a report by Associated Press stolen an estimated $1.2 billion worth of cryptocurrency.

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