North Korea stole over $659M in crypto heists throughout 2024, deployed faux job seekers

North Korean-backed hackers stole at the very least $659 million by means of a number of cryptocurrency heists in 2024, whereas additionally deploying IT employees to infiltrate blockchain corporations as insider threats, in line with Japan, South Korea, and the USA in a uncommon joint assertion (PDF) on Tuesday.

The announcement supplied the primary official affirmation that North Korea was behind July’s $235 million hack of WazirX, India’s largest cryptocurrency trade. The July 2024 breach compelled WazirX to droop buying and selling and later restructure the agency.

Different main assaults included a $308 million theft from Japan’s DMM Bitcoin, $50 million every from Upbit and Radiant Capital, and $16.13 million from Rain Administration, in line with the joint assertion.

The assertion says the Lazarus Group, a identified risk group of North Korean hackers, performed social engineering assaults and deployed cryptocurrency-stealing malware like TraderTraitor to breach exchanges, whereas additionally infiltrating corporations by having North Korean IT employees pose as job candidates, in line with the assertion.

“The US, Japan, and the Republic of Korea advise non-public sector entities, notably in blockchain and freelance work industries, to totally assessment these advisories and bulletins to higher inform cyber risk mitigation measures and mitigate the danger of inadvertently hiring DPRK IT employees,” the governments stated.

Earlier U.N. stories estimated that North Korea stole $3 billion in cryptocurrency between 2017 and 2023 to fund its sanctioned nuclear weapons packages. Current knowledge from Chainalysis confirmed North Korean hackers had been accountable for 61% of all cryptocurrency stolen in 2024, totaling $1.34 billion.