Lazarus Group, a group of cyber criminals apparently funded by the North Korea government, hacked into a crypto wallet of a video game maker from the United States to steal $620m worth Ethereum.
US Treasury has endorsed the news and tagged it as one of the biggest cryptocurrency heists of all time.
Highly placed sources say that the steal of funds was made to find the nuclear ambitions of Kim Jong UN.
The game company that is in discussion is Axie and has admitted that it has lost half a billion in currency a month ago and strongly suspects hackers from Pyongyang.
Some governments operating across the world are taking the help of hackers to fund their blatant ambitions, and one such nation is North Korea.
FBI and CIA were pressed into service to discover the whereabouts of the criminals. And after preliminary analysis, it was discovered that the attack was conducted by Lazarus on March 23rd, 2022.
Gamers on Axie can earn cryptocurrency for playing and winning games and selling their avatars. And hackers funded by Kim were seen involving such cyber crimes to produce weapons meant for mass destructions.
NOTE 1- Lazarus, also dubbed as Guardians of Peace or Whois Team, is a group of criminals secretly funded by the government led by Kim. They have been indulging in cyber attacks since 2010 and the US Intelligence community recognizes this gang of notorious criminals as Hidden Cobra.
NOTE 2- Microsoft, the Windows OS tech giant, identifies the group as Zinc and labeled it as a confirmed nation behind the launch of May 2017 WannaCry Ransomware Attack that infected over 250,000 computers across the world.
NOTE 3- North Korea sends its cyber army to china for a special training and those passing out with flying colors in malware distribution and execution are allowed to join Lazarus group that is again split into two units- BlueNorOff and AndAriel.
NOTE 4- All those employed in Lazarus will receive basic education from Kim Chaek University of Technology, Kim II-Sung University, and Moranbong University.
NOTE 5– The second season on the “Lazarus Heist Broadcast” will start in mid 2022 and will be linked closely to the first season broadcasted with the same name in 2021.
NOTE 6- In April 2022, the United States Treasury placed Lazarus in the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) and Blocked Persons list.
The post North Korea steals $620m Ethereum from US Video Game maker appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.
April 18, 2022 at 11:44AM
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