by Aima Raza
State sponsors from North Korea run the Lazarus Group while stealing billions in digital currency that made their nation rank fifth for Bitcoin ownership. UN data finds that North Korea uses 47% of its nuclear budget through crypto assets stolen from victims globally.
The intelligence firm Arkham Intelligence reports that , 2025 Lazarus Group stored $1.14 billion worth of Bitcoin. After stealing Ethereum the hackers transformed it into Bitcoin before they took the Bybit funds and used them for money laundering activities. Since then North Korea now controls 13,518 Bitcoin. Lazarus Group holds more Bitcoin than Bhutan and El Salvador but less than other countries including the USA.
On the same day OKX detected and halted its DEX aggregator services since Lazarus Group attempted to break into their system. After discussing the situation with relevant authorities they took this action. The EU recently started reviewing how OKX’s Web3 platform was involved in laundering money from the Bybit crypto theft and subsequent investigations.
Lazarus Group Expands Cyber Attacks
In March Socket Research Team found six malicious packages in the npm ecosystem that Lazarus Group used to steal confidential information from developers. The research team located five more packages on the GitHub platform.
Pursuing their cybercriminal activities since February 21 North Korean hackers hacked into Bybit to steal $1.4 billion – blockchain analytics showed according to Elliptic.
Lazarus Group began its attacks on systems in 2009 with the name APT38. In 2017 the group moved from stealing from banks to conducting cyber attacks on cryptocurrency exchanges They took money from NiceHash Bithumb and Youbit platforms. The Ronin Network experienced its biggest loss in 2022 when the group took $615 million as they became responsible for 17% of all crypto theft by 2023.
Lazarus Group’s Global Threat
With the North Korean government backing the group faces legal barriers that make their prosecution almost impossible. Lazarus behaves without legal limits since the North Korean government supports its activities and allows the group to use stolen funds to develop military weapons. The cyberattacks of this group harm many government and private organizations across multiple nations including U.S., China, Russia, South Korea and Vietnam.
Research from the UN shows North Korea receives 40% of its nuclear weapon development budget from cybercrime funds. North Korea maintains its ballistic missile testing programs using Hwasong-18 Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles which have the range to travel over 15,000 kilometers while carrying multiple warheads. North Korea fired 90 missiles during 2022 and reached a new record for missile launches.
The activities of the Lazarus Group demonstrate that businesses require better cybersecurity systems. Officials recommend tight financial controls despite DeFi and Web3’s commitment to privacy since strict regulations help to reduce illegal use of systems. The risk of North Korea’s cyber thefts will stay active so we need both privacy and protection from digital threats to minimize these threats.
#blockchain #crypto, #decentralized, #distributed, #ledger
This news is republished from another source. You can check the original article here
