Tag: longer

• The Bybit CEO has said that 20% of the 1.4 billion dollars stolen from the exchange are now impossible to track.
• The computer pirates turned one billion dollars into Eth a BTC through Thorchain and spread it.
• Until now, 11 hunter have helped freeze 42 million dollars of stolen funds.

In an amazing update, the CEO of Bybit, Ben Zhou, has revealed that 280 million dollars of the 1.4 billion stolen dollars of the cryptocurrency exchange platform in the February hacking have disappeared in channels impossible to trace.

The security gap, attributed to the North Korean hacker group Lazarus, caused the theft of approximately 500,000 Ether (ETH) of the Bybit reserves. Although most of the funds are still visible in the block chain, Zhou’s announcement underlines the challenges faced by researchers in their career against time to freeze assets before hackers withdraw them completely.

The attack exploded vulnerabilities in Safewallet, a third -party wallet platform used by Bybit. Lazarus hackers committed the developer’s device, injecting malicious code that allowed them to divert almost 1.5 billion dollars in ETH during a routine transfer.

Despite the rapid Bybit action to restore backup 1: 1 of the assets of customers in a matter of days, computer pirates have relentlessly moving stolen funds through multiple platforms, which complicates recovery efforts.

The computer pirates took advantage of Thorchain to fragment the funds

An important part of the stolen Ether (417,348 ETH valued at about 1,000 million dollars) has become Bitcoin (BTC) and has been distributed in 6,954 wallets, each with an average of 1.71 BTC. Zhou said that 72% of the loot, or 361,255 ETH worth 900 million dollars, was channeled through Thorchain, a decentralized exchange known for its privacy functions.

Only Thorchain prosecuted a record of 4,660 million dollars in exchanges in the week that ended on March 2, raising more than 5.5 million dollars in commissions for these illicit transactions.

This strategy of fragmentation and conversion has made the follow -up of the funds more and more difficult for Blockchain forensic equipment.

Meanwhile, 20% of stolen assets (approximately 79,655 eth) have been “dark”, which means that they have bleached through platforms such as Exch and have become impossible to track.

Zhou stressed that 40,233 ETH additional, for a value of 100 million dollars, passed through the OKX web3. Of these, 23,553 ETH (65 million dollars) remain impossible to track without greater cooperation of the OKX Wallet team, while 16,680 ETH are still within reach of researchers.

The executive director stressed that the next one or two weeks are crucial, since computer pirates are preparing to download their loot through bags, extraburstile negotiation tables (OTC) and peer-to-peer networks (P2P).

Bybit has recruited hunting in the midst of freezing efforts

In an attempt to frustrate computer pirates, Bybit has requested the help of hunting and security companies.

Zhou reported that 11 parts, including outstanding actors such as Mantle, Paraswap and Blockchain Zachxbt detective, have helped freeze 42 million dollars, or 3% of stolen funds. Until now, Bybit has paid 2,178 million dollars in USDT to these taxpayers as part of their recovery efforts, with more details available in LazarusBounty.com.

The exchange was also associated with the web3 Zeroshadow security company on February 25 to improve its Blockchain forensic analysis and maximize asset recovery. Despite these efforts, computer pirates do not show signs of deceleration.

The Blockchain Elliptic analysis company has identified more than 11,000 wallets linked to the Lazarus group, which suggests an expanding network designed to hide its footprints.

Zhou indicated that additional $ 65 million could be recovered in ETH with the support of OKX, but time ends since the attackers continue to wash operations through platforms such as EXCH and OKX Web3 proxy.