On-chain analysis shows that North Korean hackers responsible for Harmony’s Horizon bridge hack spent the weekend attempting to move some of the illicit funds. Using Railgun, a smart contract system that initiates what is known as “Zero Knowledge Proof,” the hackers attempted to move the illicit funds through six different exchanges, several of which were notified over the weekend. At least two of the exchanges, Binance and Huobi, were able to move fast and freeze at least a portion of the laundered funds. The movements come more than a week after the FBI declared Lazarus group, which has links to the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea (DPRK), as responsible for the exploit of Harmony’s Horizon Protocol, which saw in total more than $100 million worth of cryptocurrency disappear in an attack in June 2022. That attack and others like it, the FBI allege, are spurring “the DPRK’s use of illicit activities—including cybercrime and virtual currency theft—to generate revenue for the regime.” Since 2017, $1.2 billion worth of crypto has been stolen by the group, according to an Associated Press report. The largest of which was the $624 million hack last April of the Ronin Network, Axie Infinity’s side-chain link to the Ethereum network. Since the proliferation of decentralized finance, or DeFi, bridge attacks are becoming increasingly more common.
Read more : Lazarus attempt to launder additional $27.2M of funds stolen from Harmony bridge hack.
