The massive breach of a decentralized finance project bears the hallmarks of a North Korean attack, according to a senior White House official. Mixin Network, which helps blockchains handle transactions more efficiently, said it had lost less than $150 million in a late-September attack. Originally the company estimated it lost $200 million but reduced it after a final inspection. “The tradecraft appears to be the same kind of tradecraft we’ve seen from the DPRK previously,” Anne Neuberger, deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, told Bloomberg News in an interview, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Neuberger said law enforcement is still looking into the hack, which she said has “some of the same attributes” of past North Korean attacks. The breach was caused by a compromise in the project’s cloud service provider’s database, according to blockchain security firm SlowMist, which is assisting Mixin in the investigation.
A spokesperson for Mixin declined to address allegations about North Korean hackers. Mixin is working with Mandiant, SlowMist and others as part of its investigation, the spokesperson said, adding that they had made significant progress that couldn’t be shared for security reasons. The company is also offering $20 million “as a bounty” to the hacker or anyone who can refund the stolen money, the spokesperson said. The Department of Justice declined to comment. Mandiant, a cybersecurity firm that is part of Google Cloud and is responding to the hack, also declined to comment. Neuberger indicated the US would seek to intervene to recover the stolen funds if possible.
