Hackers who stole about $1.4 billion in cryptocurrency from crypto exchange Bybit turned it into bitcoin, and experts called it the first phase of making money.
On February 21, Bybit said a “complex attack” was carried out on one of the company’s wallets Caused theft of 401,346 EthereumAt the time, it was worth about $1.4 billion, the largest crypto theft in history and perhaps the biggest robbery ever. Blockchain monitoring company and researchers, and the FBIaccusing the North Korean government of hacking after the hack.
According to Tom Robinson, co-founder and chief scientist at Crypto Monitoring Monitoring, hackers have moved all Ethereum from dozens of cryptocurrency wallets since the digital robbery, initially splitting the gains and converting most of the funds into bitcoin. There is also former federal prosecutor and senior Treasury official Ari Redbord, now head of global policy at TRM Labs and a blockchain monitoring company.
Andrew Fierman, head of national security intelligence for blockchain monitoring enterprise chain analysis, told TechCrunch that the company is tracking about 90% of stolen bybit funds, most of which have been converted to [Bitcoin] and held in about 4,400 addresses. ”
“Around 10% of the remaining stolen funds lost expenses/freezes/closed currencies,” the company said. Ramp It is a service that turns cryptocurrency into cash.
During the first phase between February 24 and March 2, North Korean hackers took measures to cover up the origins of the stolen cryptocurrency. According to Redbord, hackers rely primarily on ThorsWap, a decentralized protocol, to achieve this goal, which enables users to exchange assets “without intermediary” on different blockchains.
Redbold said these money laundering steps show the hacker’s “unprecedented level of operational efficiency.”
“This rapid money laundering suggests that North Korea has either expanded its money laundering infrastructure or underground financial networks, especially in China, has enhanced their ability to absorb and process illegal funds,” Redbord said. “The scale and speed of this operation present new challenges for investigators as traditional anti-money laundering (AML) mechanisms strive to keep pace with a large number of illegal transactions.”
Meanwhile, both Redbord and Robinson say this is just the beginning of hacking.
“They still have a way to benefit from these funds,” Robinson told TechCrunch.
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Currently, the second phase requires the “initial batch” of stolen funds (now bitcoin) into the mixer, Redbord explained, which aims to “create doubts about researchers during the tracking process.” encryption Mixer (or Tumbler)’s service is designed to obscure the origin and destination of someone’s cryptocurrency by mixing its cryptocurrency with other users’ funds.
“So far, essentially anyone with patience and willingness can follow the flow of Bybit funds. The mixer is a major obstacle for most investigators, though,” Robinson said.
Redbord notes that mixers typically receive millions to $10 million a day, so: “Whether these mixers can continue to absorb the money that works is an open question.”
In other words, while hackers have obtained a large amount of, record-breaking loot from Bybit, it is not clear how much hackers can convert into cash.
However, according to Robinson, Bybi still hopes to restore some of these.
“It is possible that at least some of these funds will go through the exchange and may be frozen,” Redbold said. “It’s just a question of whether these exchanges will soon know that they are dealing with the stolen assets.”
After the hack, Baibaibi offers a bounty of $140 million For anyone who can help track money and freeze it, this process can prevent others from getting money. The company said it would pay 5% of the recovered funds to “entities that successfully freeze funds” and pay 5% to anyone who reported the funds for the first time and caused them to be frozen. Bybitt has awarded only $4.3 million to 19 bounty hunters as of this writing. Official page of bounty.
Bybit did not respond to a request for comment.
