North Korean hackers have pulled off the largest cryptocurrency theft on record, stealing $1.5 billion from the digital asset exchange Bybit, security experts have revealed.
According to CNN, the attack, which occurred on Friday, targeted Bybit, a platform that claims to be the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency exchange with over 40 million users.
In mere minutes, hackers made off with an amount comparable to a significant portion of North Korea’s reported annual gross domestic product.
By the weekend, they had already begun laundering approximately $160 million of the stolen funds through a network of accounts linked to North Korean operatives, according to crypto-tracing firm TRM Labs.
The firm noted that this single heist nearly doubled the total amount stolen by North Korean hackers last year.
Nick Carlsen, a former FBI intelligence analyst now with TRM Labs, described the scale of the attack as unprecedented.
“We’ve never seen anything on this scale before. The ability of these illicit financial networks to absorb such huge amounts of money so quickly is deeply concerning,” he said.
The attack presents an early challenge for the Trump administration, which has long sought to prevent North Korea from using cybercrime to fund its nuclear and missile programmes.
Reports from the United Nations and private security firms suggest that North Korean hackers have stolen billions from banks and cryptocurrency platforms over the years.
In 2023, a White House official estimated that nearly half of North Korea’s missile programme was financed through such illicit activities.
Bybit CEO Ben Zhou has assured users that the exchange remains solvent and can absorb the $1.5 billion loss.
“Bybit worked closely with regulators and law enforcement agencies to address the hack,” the firm stated. Meanwhile, an FBI spokesperson declined to comment on the incident.
North Korea’s cyber operations are widely regarded as a crucial source of revenue for the heavily sanctioned regime. Once stolen, cryptocurrency is typically laundered through a series of swaps between digital assets before being converted into US dollars or Chinese yuan. US and South Korean law enforcement agencies have struggled to intercept these funds, often having only minutes to act before they are beyond reach.
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Investigators are now working to recover some of the stolen assets. A group of crypto security experts has so far helped retrieve around $43 million, while Tom Robinson, co-founder of crypto-tracing firm Elliptic, confirmed that an additional $243,000 had been seized. “A drop in the ocean, but a start,” he remarked. Bybit has pledged to reward security experts with 10% of any recovered funds.
Carlsen emphasised the need for a stronger international response to combat North Korea’s cyber theft operations. “The current strategy from governments and industry clearly isn’t working,” he said. “People should be going back through drawing board right now on how to deter and punish North Korea for these hacks.”
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