CoinEx over $27M hack loss traced to North Korean hackers

The over $27 million hack of crypto exchange CoinEx was carried out by the North Korean Lazarus Group, blockchain security firm SlowMist reported on Sept. 13.

The findings were corroborated by prominent on-chain sleuth ZachXBT, who posted that the group accidentally connected their address to the $41 million Stake hack on Optimism and Polygon.

SlowMist explained how it arrived at this conclusion, stating how the addresses involved in the previous Stake and Aplhapo exploit interacted with that of the CoinEx hack.

On Sept. 7, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) linked the $41 million exploit of crypto gambling site Stake to the North Korean state-backed actors. According to the notice, North Korean hackers have stolen over $200 million in crypto assets from several crypto projects, including Atomic Wallet and Alphapo.

On Sept. 12, CoinEx confirmed that it was exploited for an undisclosed sum involving unusual withdrawals from its hot wallets. Several on-chain sleuths estimated the attack led to the loss of more than $27 million in different cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum, Tron, and other ERC-20 tokens.

Earlier today, the exchange identified the third series of suspicious wallet addresses linked to the hack, adding that it was working nonstop to track down the hackers’ addresses.

Despite mounting economic sanctions imposed by Western countries and their allies, North Korea has increasingly turned to illicit crypto wealth to fund its weapons program. Meanwhile, the Asian country has repeatedly denied reports of sponsoring hackers despite the mounting evidence laid against it by world-leading organizations, such as the United Nations.

Earlier this month, South Korea revealed its intent to work on a bill that will enable it to track and freeze crypto assets that North Korea stole for this program.

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