According to an on-chain analysis by ZachXBT, the North Korean hacker group Lazarus suddenly moved no less than 41,000 Ethers (ETH) to Railgun before transferring them to various exchanges. According to Changpeng Zhao, part of the funds could be intercepted in the form of Bitcoin (BTC) thanks to a collaboration between Binance and Huobi.
Les hackers du bridge Harmony déplacent 41 000 Ethers (ETH) – Une partie est interceptée
Lazarus moves $63 million worth of Ethers
Almost 6 months after the attack on the Harmony blockchain bridge, hackers suddenly moved 41,000 Ether (ETH) from the hack, which represents no less than $63.5 million in motion.
According to ellipticalthe company specializing in on-chain analysis, this attack was attributable to Lazarus, the famous group of North Korean hackers also responsible for the colossal $624 million Ronin bridge hackthe biggest hack to date in the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem.
The movement of stolen ETH was first reported by ZachXBTa well-known investigator of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, who has also compiled more than 350 addresses related to the Harmony bridge hack.
1/2 North Korea’s Lazarus Group had a very busy weekend moving $63.5m (~41000 ETH) from the Harmony bridge hack through Railgun before consolidating funds and depositing on three different exchanges. pic.twitter.com/huDumaJeSh
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) January 15, 2023
As it indicates here, the Lazarus group would have passed the funds through Railgun (a decentralized application anonymizing transactions via its smart contracts) before sending them. to Binance, Huobi and OKX exchanges. The 350 addresses identified by ZachXBT were all used to channel the funds in different ways so as to scatter the evidence.
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Funds partly intercepted by exchanges
According to Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binancepart of the funds concerned would have been intercepted:
We detected Harmony One hacker fund movement. They previously tried to launder through Binance and we froze his accounts. This time he used Huobi. We assisted Huobi team to freeze his accounts. Together, 124 BTC have been recovered. CeFi helping to keep DeFi #SAFU! 🙏
— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) January 16, 2023
“We have detected a movement of funds from the Harmony One hacker. He had previously tried to launder his funds through Binance and we froze his accounts. This time he used Huobi. We helped the Huobi team freeze their accounts. Together, 124 BTC were recovered. CeFi helps keep DeFi #SAFU [sécurisée, NDLR] »
CZ’s tweet suggests that Lazarus hackers allegedly exchanged at least part of the funds for Bitcoin (BTC). It is thus 124 BTC which could be intercepted thanks to a concerted work between the security teams of Binance and those of the Huobi exchange, which is approximately $2.4 million at current market price.
Responding to this tweet, an individual asked Changpeng Zhao if exchanges communicate with each other in this kind of situation, to which the person replied that “most” exchanges are willing to collaborate, but that “all exchanges” don’t. did not necessarily agree to do so.
Although no names were explicitly mentioned, it is quite likely that it refers to OKX, this exchange being the only one of the 3 not mentioned in the initial tweet. Anyway, the rest of the funds from the Harmony bridge hack should probably be moved soongiven the speed at which these can be frozen.
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Passionate about the world of decentralized finance and the novelties brought by Web 3.0, I write articles for Cryptoast to help make blockchain more accessible to everyone. Convinced that cryptocurrencies will change the future very soon.
Maximilien Prue
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