Binance and Huobi freeze $1.4M in crypto linked to North Korean hackers
Feb 14. 2023
By Brayden Lindrea
The North Korean-based hacker outfit Lazarus Group resorted to different privacy mixers attempting to anonymize the stolen funds, but it didn’t work.
Cryptocurrency exchanges Binance and Huobi have again frozen accounts linked to the $100 million Harmony Horizon bridge attack on Jun. 24, 2022.
Around $1.4 million worth of crypto frozen by the trading platforms came from accounts linked to the notorious Lazarus Group operating out of North Korea.
The investigation was carried out by blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, according to a report shared by the firm on Feb. 14. However, the firm didn’t state what coins or tokens were frozen.
Elliptic explained it passed on the intelligence to Binance and Houbi who then acted promptly to freeze the Lazarus Group-linked accounts:
“The stolen funds remained dormant until recently, when our investigators began to see them funneled through complex chains of transactions, to exchanges. By promptly notifying these platforms about these illicit deposits, they were able to suspend these accounts and freeze funds.”
Since the Harmony exploit, it has been well documented that Lazarus Group resorted to the now United States OFAC-sanctioned privacy mixer Tornado Cash in an attempt to break the transaction trail back to the original theft.
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