For years, North Korea has used cyberattacks to steal billions of dollars, and a big chunk of that stolen money has gone straight into funding the country’s missile and weapons programs. North Korea’s hacking group, Lazarus, is behind many of these digital heists, targeting financial institutions and cryptocurrency firms to fund the regime’s nuclear ambitions.
These cybercriminals have gotten shockingly good at what they do, managing to siphon massive amounts of money in a matter of minutes. The stolen funds are quickly laundered through complex networks, making it incredibly hard for authorities to track them. Investigators often have only minutes to intercept the stolen money, with occasional success, like when a $1 million portion of $100 million was recovered after a heist from a California-based crypto firm. However, with billions at stake, the majority of the loot often slips through the cracks.
A recent heist, which saw the theft of a record $1.5 billion in digital assets from the cryptocurrency exchange Bybit, has once again thrown the spotlight on North Korea’s hacking operations. The attack, which took place on Friday, involved the theft of 400,000 Ethereum (ETH) from a compromised offline wallet. This incident marks the largest theft in cryptocurrency history, far surpassing the $620 million stolen from the Ronin Network in 2022, which was also attributed to Lazarus.
Despite the scale of the theft, Bybit CEO Ben Zhou reassured users that their funds would be reimbursed. The company has already launched a refund program and promised to cover any unrecovered funds from its own treasury. However, the fact that such a huge amount could be stolen so quickly raises serious concerns about the security of digital assets. While experts have managed to recover some of the stolen funds—about $43 million—much of the money remains unaccounted for. Crypto security firm Elliptic also reported seizing a small fraction of the loot, around $243,000.
This heist highlights the growing threat posed by North Korea’s cyber operations, which have become a crucial source of revenue for the regime. Experts warn that, as long as these heists continue, North Korea will have more funds to develop its missile and weapons programs, making global security even more precarious.
Such heists trigger alarms as far as Washington DC, with officials of Donald Trump’s administration looking for ways to curb North Korea’s bid for arming itself.
