US Government Warns of North Korean Crypto Attacks After Tying Nation to $625M Hack

The government said it had observed North Korean cyber actors targeting a wide range of crypto and blockchain companies, including exchanges, DeFi protocols and play-to-earn games.

Apr 18, 2022 at 10:17 p.m. UTC

Updated Apr 19, 2022 at 4:34 p.m. UTC

North Korean military parade (Shutterstock)

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Several U.S. government organizations jointly warned on Monday of the threat posed by cryptocurrency thefts and tactics used by the North Korean state-sponsored group known as Lazarus Group.

The FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the U.S. Treasury Department said other names for the group include APT38, BlueNoroff and Stardust Chollima.
The warning comes after the Treasury Department tied Lazarus to a $625 million theft of cryptocurrency from the Ronin bridge linked to popular play-to-earn game Axie Infinity.
The U.S. government said it had observed North Korean cyber actors targeting a wide range of crypto and blockchain companies, including “cryptocurrency exchanges, decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, play-to-earn cryptocurrency video games, cryptocurrency trading companies, venture capital funds investing in cryptocurrency, and individual holders of large amounts of cryptocurrency or valuable non-fungible tokens” (NFT).
The organizations advised companies and individuals to guard against social engineering attempts by the group to gain access to crypto by patching all systems, prioritizing patching known exploited vulnerabilities, training users to recognize and report phishing attempts and using multifactor authentication.

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