Per a Reuters report, the Lazarus Group, a well-known hacking group backed by North Korea, laundered $5.4 million in 2020 with the help of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.
Eterbase, a little-known cryptocurrency trading site situated in Slovakia, was the source of the ill-gotten assets. Because the hackers created a slew of anonymous accounts, the Binance exchange was completely unaware of the fraudulent transactions.
Binance processed more than $2.35 billion in illegally tainted cryptocurrency transactions over five years from 2017 to 2021. The statistics, on the other hand, have been refuted by the exchange.
The Lazarus Group rose to prominence after initiating a cyber-espionage campaign against the South Korean government in the early 2010s.
Upon hijacking film studio Sony Pictures and exposing confidential data, including certain copies of then-unreleased films, it received extensive media attention. In 2014, the well-known hacking organization was also responsible for the WannaCry ransomware attack, which affected hundreds of thousands of computers.
Following the mainstreaming of cryptocurrency in 2017, the Lazarus Group began targeting cryptocurrency exchanges such as Coinlink.
Also, in an earlier news report, hackers from the “hermit kingdom” were revealed to be behind the $625 million Ronin hack earlier this year, according to US authorities. With the help of the TornadoCash mixer, a portion of the money has been laundered.
Binance recovered a chunk of the cash tied to the Ronin robbery in late April. North Korea is said to be using stolen cryptocurrency to fund weapons of mass destruction, evading international restrictions.
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