North Korean hackers stole half a billion dollars in cryptocurrency
North Korea's infamous hacking group Lazarus has stolen more than half a billion dollars in cryptocurrency over the last two years. The group, according to a report from The Next Web (TNW), carried out several thefts since January 2017, topping all other cryptocurrency attackers. Notably, the risk of such attacks isn't going away anytime soon. Here's all about it.
14 cryptocurrency thefts, biggest from Lazarus
Since the beginning of last year, hacking outfits have carried out as many as 14 cyber attacks across different online exchanges. They've stolen as much as $882 million, but the biggest contribution comes from Lazarus, which stole $571 million in cryptocurrency. The outfit conducted 5 attacks but their biggest loot - $534 million - came from a single attack conducted earlier in January 2018.
Findings from Group-IB's hi-tech cybercrime trend summary
The case of cryptocurrency theft has been revealed from a summary provided by renowned cybersecurity unit Group-IB. They have been working on an annual report detailing the situation of hi-tech cybercrime trends across the globe.
Techniques used for crypto-thefts
According to Group-IB, hacking outfits are using techniques ranging from spear phishing to social engineering and malware introduction to compromising cryptocurrency exchange networks. "After the local network is successfully compromised, the hackers browse the local network to find work stations and servers used working with private cryptocurrency wallets," the summary said. Spear phishing, as the report stated, is the most widely used hacking technique.
In fact, phishing claimed a big chunk of ICO funds
Since January 2017, nearly 10% of the total funds raised by the way of Initial Coin Offering or ICO has been stolen. More interestingly, as much as 56% of this digital money was stolen via phishing attacks. Large phishing groups, as the report said, are taking advantage of people's fear of missing out, luring them to invest in unauthentic projects on knockoff websites.
More worryingly, these thefts are predicted to increase
The largest phishing attackers are capable of stealing $1m a month, but with time, aggressive hacking groups are expected to move towards cryptocurrency, leading to an increase in attacks. The report also says ICOs will remain the primary target of attacks. "Fraudulent phishing-schemes involving crypto-brands will only get more complex as well as cybercriminals' level of preparation for phishing attacks," the report added.
