Bybit was attacked by hackers who stole 1.5 billion dollars in Ethereum. This represents 16% of all thefts in the crypto industry. According to Arkham Intelligence and ZachXBT analyst, the North Korean Lazarus Group is behind the hack.
How did the hackers act?
Experts compare this hack to the attack on the Indian stock exchange WazirX. Lazarus Group converts stolen ERC-20 tokens to ETH, then to BTC and outputs them to yuan through Asian exchanges.
How are funds laundered?
According to ZachXBT, hackers have already transferred 5,000 ETH to a new address. Next, the assets passed through the eXch mixer, and then were converted to BTC via Chainflip.
What does Bybit say?
The head of the exchange, Ben Zhou, assured that all client assets are secured 1:1, and losses will be covered by reserves. However, analysts believe that the exchange has lost about 8% of its funds.
What's next?
Bybit hopes to block further transfers through cross-chain services, but given Lazarus Group's experience, it will be extremely difficult to recover the stolen funds. How safe is it to store cryptocurrencies on centralized exchanges?