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The North Korean hacker group Lazarus Group lost access to $4.96 million after stablecoin issuers blacklisted two of its addresses. The assets were discovered by the well-known on-chain detective ZachXBT.
In a months-long investigation, ZachXBT tracked how an organization linked to the DPRK authorities laundered more than $200 million in fiat and cryptocurrencies over a period of about three years. The funds were stolen as a result of 25 exploits on various blockchains.
The expert worked in collaboration with the teams of Metamask, Binance, TRM Labs and Five I's LLC. One of its results was that the companies behind the "stablecoins" USDT (Tether), USDC (Circle), TUSD (Techteryx) and BUSD (Paxos) froze two wallets of attackers.
In addition to stablecoins worth almost $5 million, addresses contain $720,000 worth of DAI and $313,000 worth of Ethereum. These assets could not be blocked.
In addition, as a result of the investigation, $1.65 million worth of Lazarus Group funds were frozen on various exchanges.
However, the longest decision to block (4.5 months) was made in Circle. The expert was surprised to find that with a staff of 1000 employees, the USDC issuer does not have a separate hack response team to protect the ecosystem.
In a months-long investigation, ZachXBT tracked how an organization linked to the DPRK authorities laundered more than $200 million in fiat and cryptocurrencies over a period of about three years. The funds were stolen as a result of 25 exploits on various blockchains.
The expert worked in collaboration with the teams of Metamask, Binance, TRM Labs and Five I's LLC. One of its results was that the companies behind the "stablecoins" USDT (Tether), USDC (Circle), TUSD (Techteryx) and BUSD (Paxos) froze two wallets of attackers.
In addition to stablecoins worth almost $5 million, addresses contain $720,000 worth of DAI and $313,000 worth of Ethereum. These assets could not be blocked.
In addition, as a result of the investigation, $1.65 million worth of Lazarus Group funds were frozen on various exchanges.
However, the longest decision to block (4.5 months) was made in Circle. The expert was surprised to find that with a staff of 1000 employees, the USDC issuer does not have a separate hack response team to protect the ecosystem.
