North Korean Hackers Target 1.4 Billion In Crypto-Heist

An insane crypto heist just went down at Bybit, and it’s wild.

It’s not front page news and most people have their radars turned off to anything crypto, but it is affecting crypto-currency markets in a very negative way, causing bulls to turn into bears (at least for the time being) as investors get spooked.

On February 21, it was announced that hackers snagged over $1.4 billion in digital assets. That’s right, billion with a B.

They’re calling it possibly the biggest crypto theft ever in the industry’s 15-year run.

Bybit is a huge exchange based in Dubai, second only to Binance, and they got hit during what was supposed to be a routine move of Ethereum— the crypto runner-up to Bitcoin.

So, here’s what happened: they were shifting Ethereum from their supposedly secure “cold” wallet, which is offline, to their “warm” wallet for daily trading. It’s a process with a number of security checks and signatures, but somehow, the hackers pulled it off. Bybit said on X that the attack messed with the signing interface—showed the right address on the surface but tweaked the smart contract underneath. Next thing you know, the thieves got control of the cold wallet and in a blink of an eye, 1.4 billion in Ethereum is gone to a mystery address.

Ben Zhou, the CEO, jumped on X to calm everyone down, saying customer funds are safe and they’ll cover anyone who got burned. “Even if we don’t recover this, we’ve got every client’s assets backed 1-to-1,” he said. He also mentioned the other wallets are fine and withdrawals are running smooth, but man, what a mess. He’s even asking for help tracking the stolen loot.

Now, here’s where it gets juicy—security folks like Elliptic and Arkham Intelligence are pointing fingers at the Lazarus Group, this notorious hacking crew tied to North Korea. Furthermore, ZachXBT, an indie sleuth, linked it to another hack on January 23 at Phemex, where $29 million got swiped, as the same shady wallets popped up in both hacks.Lazarus is apparently Pyongyang’s go-to for raking in cash through crypto thefts—with Google even calling North Korea the world’s top cybercrime powerhouse in 2024 (no surprise).

The numbers are astronomical. Chainalysis says North Korean hackers stole $1.34 billion in 2024 alone across 47 hits—which according to reports is 61% of all crypto stolen globally this year, and it doubles what was stolen in 2023.

In response to these financial threats, the U.S., Japan, and South Korea teamed up in January to warn everyone about North Korea’s cyber crimes, saying they’re using the cash for nukes and missiles and imploring companies to beef up security, as well as watch out for North Korean IT workers sneaking into remote jobs.

As the crypto-market becomes more legitimized and accepted around the world, it becomes a more attractive target for this kind of cyber crime, and it can affect entire governments and politics across the world.This is the brave new world of 2025, on the cusp of an entirely new financial frontier, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.