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U.S. links North Korean hacker group to Axie Infinity crypto theft (https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/crypto/north-korea-lazarus-axie-infinity-crypto-theft-rcna24518)

Finally the responsible for the biggest crypto theft of all times was revealed. Not only United States, but also Chainalysis and Elliptic Blockchain analytics firms confirmed the information.

I don't know why, but Sky Mavis (the company owner of Axie Infinity) and CrowdStrike, company hired to investigate the theft, didn't want to comment anything regards the recent findings.

For me it's absurd to see there are sovereign countries filling their treasuries with stolen funds from virtual robbery practices. What kind of nation is this?

we already know that North Korea has been using their hacker team for a long time to raise funds to finance their nuclear plan... one of the most popular ransomware of this hacker team is Global WannaCry 2.0 and also some other viruses... I can't understand how a country that is practically closed and undeveloped like North Korea has a team of hackers who are very good at computer security

And you still wonder? A communist country where producing goods and services is not exactly what characterizes them, has to end up stealing in order to maintain itself, because in the end such systems all end up the same: with economic collapse due to a decreasing production and a fictitious price control.

Read this thread: Enjoy communism (III) rats eating dead people and people eating rats in NK (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5355530.msg57738149#msg57738149)

North Korea is living under dictatorship since its separation from mainlan Korea. The hacker group there works directly with the government and not an anonymous one. Due to their crimes against the humanity, other economies have imposed heavy sanctions on North Korea so they had to find a way to generate revenue.

Also I wouldn't wonder if Chinese government is behind all the infrastructure. Because in N. Korea, people are struggling to earn enough just feed their families. So having a computer is a distant dream for majority of the citizens. When you see N. Korea is doing something technical, you need to understand that China is supporting there.

I have not seen any evidence in the article to substantiate the claim that North Korea is responsible for the hacking, but I know that they are the culprit on duty for all the hacking that occurs. It is especially interesting how clumsy these hackers are to use the address that was previously associated with them, which is really hard to believe.


It seems to me that if you want to commit a perfect online crime today, all you need to do is put all the blame on one of the countries on the US blacklist - so while I can't say that's the case here, we still need to think critically and leave the possibility that maybe someone else is to blame for this, and many other hacks.

If it is indicated that there is support or hackers facilitated by the state, then behind the scenes it will be much more terrible. I've been hearing information about the first Axie Infinity for a long time and so far when the news has been announced by US intelligence agencies, it identifies a connection funded by the North Korean government for a specific purpose.

Saw that on the news and I'm not gonna say if I believe the thefts were from North Korea or not because we cannot be sure about it even if we have the IP range of the theft group from North Korea there is still a possibility to say some scammer is doing this to stay untracked while the governments and organizations are pointing to North Korea due to bad name they have, but still considering the relations between North Korea and the USA that's not surprising to see us governments saying such thing, true or not.

The thing is this.... How do you prove that a specific group are linked to a Bitcoin address? They have to re-use a Bitcoin address and you cannot tell me that a sophisticated hacker group will re-use Bitcoin addresses.  ::) This can just be one more of those "conspiracy theories" that could be invented to serve a specific agenda for the US government.

In this case it could be an agenda to "blame" Crypto currency for something horrendous, so that it gives them ammunition to over regulate it. (Like 911 gave them FREE pass to use surveillance on everyone, even if they were not linked to terrorism)  ::)

I don't think it would be that easy to pin point the person especially if they live in North Korea as well, the government itself is outrageous as well and therefore what the US have to do is thorough investigation and even after that they would still have to run checks to make sure they are not rounding just everyone up in the group. This would require a lot of support from North Korean government as well, if they want to solve the case and get money back, which again is impossible.. therefore I do think even if they can blame them for it, present the evidence as well, there is nothing that would come out of it much.

Definately but again we are not sure how they cannot be linked to this case as well, it all depends on them presenting some evidence, now crypto is semi - transparent they need to present the evidence to the public and list the addresses, to and for that way everyone can check it as well. It's not as complicated as fiat.

That is shocking and disgusting! We have to thank God every day we weren't born in such horrendous place! If there is something close to hell in earth it's a communist country, without any doubts.

Well, the address was linked to north korean group Lazarus, which is controlled by "General Bureau", North Korea’s primary intelligence bureau.

Moreover, the information was confirmed by blockchain analytics firms Chainalysis and Elliptic, not only US government.

I wasn't aware about this virtual pillage practice by North Korea's state, but besides this article, it's possible to find another informations about Lazarus group on google, always directly connecting them to the national dictatorship. Moreover, it seems it's already a common practice from North Korea, as other members here have mentioned.

It's long been known that North Korea will stoop to any level in order to fund their government, so it's somewhat unsurprising that they would target a supposedly anonymous cryptocurrency like Bitcoin. They have the resources of a nation state, likely thousands of hackers all probing targets every single day and there will never be any legal retaliation against them so they can do it all day long. It only takes getting lucky with one exploit, even zero-days, for them to break into exchanges and steal many millions as we see here. It's not like hacking into a bank which leaves a paper trail, they can simply vanish with the money and this may always be a weakness of Bitcoin.

So true, all the hackings would be pin pointed to NK after this. There is no solid proof and all are just theories. However the story would be different if NK would admit it and tell the world which is never gonna happen.

So what if they do able to link out on NK hacker group? There's nothing they could do on getting those funds back and also there's no one that they could blame nor even think about attaching the origin country.
Hacks is totally that normal on this market and if owners or developers are really not that mindful about security then they would be easily fucked up and lost millions of dollars if those hackers
have the chance on doing so.

Talents excel everywhere and for sure North Korean leaders pick their citizen who have potential talents on hacking then train them to enhance their talents then used this for their own benefits. We know how life hard on North Korea so most provably they have standing order on government to do such activities. This North Korean hackers are really good so I guess they have good resources to do a lot of illegal activities in future.

Now, that they identify where it was coming from, they will know how to potentially stop it next time they try to break somebody's vault. They will for sure be on their watch list and anything coming from that group or any related activity will be on the magnifying glass of authorities. They may not get the funds back but they are looking for evidences how to pin down that group. But if they are indeed genius hackers they will always find a way how to get away from the prying eyes of these authorities.

What can north korea do with $600 million? They lack the infrastructure and free markets to make effective use of capital.

In 2003 there was a story published claiming north korea trained 100 hackers to wage electronic warfare on the internet every year.


If NK claims to train 100 cybersoldiers every year, the real number might be closer to 3 cybersoldiers. But they have been at it for a long time, so they must have at least 10 hackers working for them by now.

It would be interesting to know how many global electronic intrusions and attacks NK is responsible for.

Hackers wont be called hackers if they would really be leaving up some trace for government for them to be traced up thats why its understandable that cracking them down wont really be that easy

or would really be remaining to be anonymous for a life time but you are right that they are on watchlist but trying out to get rid nor to control? Its impossible.

Specially now that hackers could move out easily their funds and remained undetected via crypto which make the job even more harder.

Its always been the case, its horrendous to see news sites and US Treasury put all these in the news while  still make things confidential/classified. How is this being believed by its readers?

Even the alleged Russian pipeline hack doesn't put any evidences to make it believable but people condemn Russia for it. People are going to hate NK too and its easy that way after all that country has no voice over the media outside theirs.

This news is pretty old.I've been reading about this theft several weeks ago.
I guess that the North Korean hackers are very good.This is only one of their major thefts.The entire amount of the coins stolen by them must be more than 1 billion.I assume that this is the main funding source of the North Korea nuclear program.Is there a way to completely cut North Korea from the world wide web? ;D
I was kinda hyped about joining Axie infinity a few months ago.I'm glad that I didn't play the game and I didn't invest any coins into a platform with such weak online security.

In the last few years, many hacker attacks have been linked to North Korea! Especially those attacks in which a large number of coins (all sorts) worth hundreds of millions of dollars were stolen, in some cases billions! I did not notice that these cases are coming to an end in court, like everything is quickly forgotten! Until the next attack happens!

Source: https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-02-06/un-experts-north-korea-seeks-to-produce-material-for-nukes (https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2022-02-06/un-experts-north-korea-seeks-to-produce-material-for-nukes)

Looks like they have some army of hackers working miracles, and I doubt they'll stop with this stuff! As the OP says this is very unfair, but I doubt they care about it, they seem to be at war, and in war, everything is allowed, right? I guess they need money for all those rockets they are firing almost every week, testing something new all the time, and showing their power to the world! They need to fund all that somehow!

It is your personal matter whether you believe what the US government or the agencies that work for them say. If, by any chance, they had made claims that hackers from another country were to blame, you would no doubt have believed that this was the case. As I have already written, we need to think critically and re-examine what someone is serving us as the truth - and without publicly disclosed evidence that would really point to who is to blame, it all comes down to speculation.

I will repeat once again that it is at least strange that someone behind such attacks is not intelligent enough to create a new crypto wallet but uses a coin address that can identify him.

What more can I say about North Korea!  A dictator like Kim Jong Un has the highest power in this country.  Now you want to expect something big from them?  I don't think they will ever be caught or this fund will ever be recovered.  And what can I say about the common people of North Korea, Already they are prisoner to the dictator

Is this something new for North Korea?  Earlier, I heard that North Korean hackers had stolen the reserves of several countries.  What else can I say about such a nation? Except few exception public, I think they mostly appreciate these activities. And a dictator like Kim Jong Un has given the gift as a punished for this.

They can use this money to trade with sympathetic countries to their cause and greedy dealers in general in exchange for goods. But I guess it will be hard for North Korea to use this money, since United States will be tracking its destination closely and sanctions will be imposed on those who are found to be dealing with funds which are currently on this crypto address.

On the other hand, certain countries are already so full of sanctions against them that receiving stolen funds by North Korea shouldn't look a punishment anyway...

North Korea sustains its economy on a lot of fraud. They're involved in a lot of USD counterfeiting for some portion of their economy so it's easy to see why they've moved on to crypto fraud. They're being mostly supported by China, because all of their fraud activities would not be enough alone to run the country.


They could sell it on the private market easily, probably to some buyers in China. Crypto currency is massive in China, obviously, and the funds that are rendered from those transactions just go to the top levels of the North Korean government. The folks that are starving or dying from disease won't see a penny of it.

This can also be a black propaganda against North Korea, I don’t know but its really hard to trust news nowadays. This hacking incident should not blame anyone aside from the developer itself, its their fault and they really have to compensate those who lose their funds, this is the result for not improving the system and too focus on earning money. Hope that this is the first and last hacking incidents with Axie.

North Korea is a secretive country but that does not mean everyone is a puppet without any education. We were hearing about state sponsored hacking team for decades and now we have solid evidence that majority of the hacks was done by North Korean hackers and we are able to pin point only because they hacked cryptocurrencies where they are not able to delete the logs and the money trail will follow them. There are numerous hacks in the banking network for decades without any concrete evidence.

Bank hacking incident?  For sure they've found something but never intended to exploit or tell it to public.Why? that would really create some sort of bad publicity of banking system which people might be talking for it

not to be secure totally if they do save up their fiat into banks thats why its never been aired nor been exposed on how things been done or in result with those investigation..

Hacker group could really origin on different country which it would be normal that they would be finding rabbit holes on where they could really advantage on.

What kind of nation is this? This is North Korea, baby. This is where the absurd is the rule and not the exception. This is where the unreasonable and unimaginable are happening all the time, more often than the reasonable and imaginable.

But what is more interesting about this is that these expert hackers could hardly be supported and trained in their impoverished hermit country. These hackers couldn't become who they are without the backing of China. So the more interesting question would be, what kind of nation helps another nation to become expert robbers?

The elite will use the money to import goods from other countries with working economies and production.    It makes no difference to the ruling class that the money is being wasted.   The entire country only exists as a satellite of China, similar system to Russia and its puppet regimes hence our current war in a rare instance of sustained resistance.

North Korea also counterfeits foreign currency and misuses its few resources and meagre electricity to steal not produce.  Its not a one off, the whole country is a disaster run by thugs and murderers again similar to Russia.

I can tell you why Sky Mavis didn't want to comment on it :D I mean us government could feel good about it because they are not worried about NK, but just some regular citizen who is CEO of some company could still feel scared against a whole nation. If you get NK against you, you will live in fear, maybe they won't do anything, or maybe they would, who knows? All in all I have to say that NK being behind all of this shocks me a bit.

I didn't know they had this good of hackers, I knew they had "some", but their talent level was unknown to me, considering they do not even have internet for regular people, raising a good hacker must be so hard.

To be honest, I'm not surprised. Such a closed country from the whole outside world that has no external obligations to anyone can do this with impunity. They can answer seriously, they have nuclear weapons. I am sure that Kim is satisfied with the work done, because only he has such an opportunity for equipment.

Best hackers?
SK is listed but no NK.
https://bscholarly.com/countries-with-the-best-hackers/

As a company CEO then you would get hesitated on dealing on a particular nation considering that NK isnt someone that you should mess up.
So its not surprising that this issue is been buried gradually.

Maybe Skymavis is already moving up on this issue and they already give an assurance that they can get over with this hacking then continue the developments which is already happening to them right now. I guess many people are not following about this case but I can say North Korean Hackers is really good since they penetrate and accumulate that amount of money. But since they have been unmasked for sure other big digital companies will be more careful about this kind of issues.

In the end, it doesn't matter if it was NK or not, it doesn't even matter if USA is telling the truth or not neither. It was stolen, and it is not back yet, which is the problem and what we should focus on as well. If we keep getting these type of hacks, it is going to hurt crypto ecosystem and we are going to be out of money.

Just one person, one group, one organization or whoever ends up getting most of the money and millions end up with nothing because of it. This is why we should be hoping that it is the end of hacks. We will probably end up with some more for sure, but that doesn't mean that we should get these huge ones, hopefully it's limited to small ones at least.

I honestly think that NK is no way or shape to threaten someone. I mean they look like they would barely be able to stop their own fugitives, there are so many North Koreans who ran away from there and talk about how bad life is there and they are fine, they do not get killed, they explain to us all the horrible things they do there, and they talk about how all the families they left behind will be shot for them running away, but they still manage to do that.

If those people can do it, sky mavis could have done it as well. If we do not stand up against bullies, then they will keep on bullying people. I believe it's time to cut NK out of global internet for sure.

The FBI is using sophisticated techniques to track down the stolen money. No matter how difficult it is. Criminals always leave traces, There is no perfect crime.

The United States Department of Justice has shown that despite the complexity of cyber fraud with cryptocurrencies, it is a labyrinth that they can solve.

More on the recovery of stolen money from Axie Infinity.

Today CZ in a Tweet said:

That is true, the worse decision is to stay silent fearing retaliations from the aggressor side. It only boosts the incidence and the dimension of new attacks on long run. But I fear there is no way to cut someone out of global internet, since it is decentralized and can be accessed anonymously.

On the other hand, there is a possibility Sky Mavis is working with US intelligence service plus exchanges where the funds were sent, so there is no reason for them to keep talking publicly about it for now.

These are good news. It's warming to hear Binance is cooperating in retrieving part of the stolen money, although it's a little amount compared to the total 600$ million theft.

This is what I like about Binance, their SAFU feature. Though, we can't expect other exchanges to cooperate and recover stolen funds. At least, someone in the industry has the initiative to do so. Another plus point for Binance here.

Also, with the complicated situation when it comes to cyber security, we don't know anymore who's working for who. Just secure your assets as much as possible and don't let these scammers got a hold of your hard-earned money.