Lazarus arises!
The North Korean hacking group has been more than a little busy recently.
In 2024, North Korea-linked groups stole $1.3B in crypto.
They passed that mark in a single month in 2025, stealing $1.4B in the notorious Bybit hack.
Data from Chainalysis back in December 2024 showed the overall number of hacks globally increasing, even though 2023 and 2024 saw a lower amount stolen than the peak years of 2021-2022.
But the $1.4B hack by the Lazarus group in February means 2025 is not off to a great start.
Even as Lazarus continues to move its stolen funds, crypto investors continue to look for non-custodial wallets to safely store their crypto. Best Wallet provides top-flight security, making the Best Wallet Token presale perhaps the best crypto to buy now.
Lazarus Moves 400 $ETH, Launches New Malware
You’ve stolen 400K Ethereum from a major exchange. Great! Now what do you do with it?
Lazarus, the shadowy group of North Korea-affiliated hackers, made off with so much $ETH in the wake of the Bybit hack that laundering it will take a while. They just made another move by shifting 400 $ETH into Tornado Cash.
The Tornado Cash protocol ‘tumbles’ crypto in shared pools. Users deposit crypto, get a private key for that transaction, then use that key to extract crypto to a different wallet.
Essentially, it’s a way to get around the public nature of the blockchain. Dedicated crypto sleuths can sometimes figure out who’s depositing and extracting what, but it’s a challenging task.
CertiK Alert did just that for the recent Lazarus transactions:
But once the funds come out the other side of Tornado’s tumblers, tracking them becomes difficult.
Crypto Founders Targeted in Elaborate Scams
In the meantime, North Korea isn’t slowing down its scams and hacks. Now they’re targeting known crypto founders.
The typical scam involves Zoom calls, faked audio issues, and a neat bit of social engineering to get the victim to hurriedly install a ‘patch’ on their computer.
Once installed, the patch gets to work snapping up private keys, and the damage is done.
Fortunately, not everyone gets caught up – two such founders, Giulio Xiloyannis and David Zhang, realised early enough to interrupt the scammers.
Xiloyannis realised the ‘VCs’ on the other end could actually hear him, and avoided moving the meeting to another link. He gave the scammers a hilarious piece of his mind, then disconnected.
Zhang also caught on early, but handled the meeting on a tablet that wasn’t compatible with the attacker’s software. In both cases, had the two men not been more careful, they could have been yet another Lazarus victim.
The scams, the hacks, the money laundering – Lazarus Group is very much alive and kicking.
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If even high-level crypto founders are being targeted, what’s an average investor supposed to do?
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Of course, always DYOR. Awareness and research is key to making wise investments – and avoiding North Korean scams. None of this is financial advice, and remember that the crypto market is always volatile.
For security and token utility, check out the $BEST presale, and be careful with those Zoom calls.
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