Binance and Huobi block $1.4M in crypto linked with North Korean hackers

​ 

Lazarus Group, a North Korean hacker group, tried different privacy mixers to hide the stolen funds. However, it failed. News Own this piece in history. Collect this article as an NFCryptocurrency exchange. Binance and Huobi again have frozen accounts related to the $100 million Harmony Horizon bridge attack of Jun. 24, 2022. The crypto that was frozen by the trading platforms totalled $1.4 million. It came from accounts associated with the Lazarus Group, a notorious North Korean group. According to Elliptic’s report, the investigation was conducted by blockchain analytics firm Elliptic on February 14. The firm did not specify which coins or tokens were frozen. Today, @HuobiGlobal and @binance froze accounts that contained $1.4 million of Lazarus Group thefts. This was made possible thanks to intel from Elliptic’s real-time investigations tools and a swift response by the receiving exchanges.https://t.co/f5bVpm8yfH– elliptic (@elliptic) February 14, 2023
Elliptic explained that it passed the intelligence to Binance, and Houbi, who then promptly took action to freeze the Lazarus Group accounts. “The stolen funds remained dormant up until recently, when our investigators started to see them funneled through complex transactions, to exchanges. They were able suspend these accounts and to freeze funds by notifying these platforms quickly about the illicit deposits. The two platforms managed to freeze and recover 121 Bitcoin (BTC), worth $2.5 million at the time. This was in connection to the Harmony attack on Jan. 16. Both platforms were able to recover 121 Bitcoin (BTC) worth $2.5 million in connection to the Harmony attack of Jan. 16. pic.twitter.com/huDumaJeSh– ZachXBT (@zachxbt) January 15, 2023
Recent Elliptic efforts last week also revealed that Lazarus Group had laundered approximately $100 million in Bitcoin through Sinbad, which they claim is a relaunch of Blender, an OFAC-sanctioned privacy mixer. According to Elliptic estimates, Lazarus Group is believed have stolen more than $2 billion in crypto since shifting its focus to the industry in 2017.