Get ready for a wild ride into the world of cyber intrigue and digital heists! The notorious 2019 Upbit cryptocurrency hack, which saw a jaw-dropping $50 million in ETH vanish into thin air, has been officially linked to the North Korean hacking maestros, Lazarus and Andariel. These groups are tied to the Reconnaissance General Bureau, North Korea's elite spy agency, and they pulled off one of the most daring crypto heists ever.
Upbit, a top crypto exchange in South Korea, sounded the alarm five years ago when 342,000 ETH were swiped from their hot wallet. Back then, each Ethereum was worth about $147, but fast forward to today, and that stolen treasure would be valued at over $1.04 billion!
Thanks to a dynamic duo of South Korean investigators and the FBI, along with some Swiss prosecutor magic, the plot thickened. They uncovered North Korean IP addresses, tracked virtual asset flows, and even sniffed out some linguistic breadcrumbs. As it turns out, about 57% of the swiped Ethereum was flipped into Bitcoin at bargain prices via North Korean-controlled exchanges, while the rest was laundered through 51 international platforms.
In a twist straight out of a thriller, South Korean cops, with a little help from their Swiss friends, managed to recover 4.8 bitcoins (worth around 600 million won) from a Swiss exchange and returned them to Upbit just last October.
And here's the kicker: This is the first time a domestic investigative agency has officially pinned a crypto heist of this magnitude on North Korea! Talk about a plot twist.
Following the 2019 debacle, Upbit beefed up their security game, but the cyber crooks are relentless. The platform has faced over 159,000 hacking attempts in just the first half of 2023—a whopping 117% jump from last year and an eye-popping 1,800% leap from the same period in 2020.
North Korean hackers have been keeping South Korea on its toes, pulling off crypto-related capers. Just last year, they donned digital disguises as government officials and journalists, tricking victims with email phishing scams. They managed to snag information from around 1,500 people, including 57 current or former government officials. This digital cloak-and-dagger saga is far from over!
