Security News > 2023 > January > FBI Says North Korean Hackers Behind $100 Million Horizon Bridge Crypto Theft

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation on Monday confirmed that North Korean threat actors were responsible for the theft of $100 million in cryptocurrency assets from Harmony Horizon Bridge in June 2022.

The law enforcement agency attributed the hack to the Lazarus Group and APT38, the latter of which is a North Korean state-sponsored threat group that specializes in financial cyber operations.

The FBI further stated the Harmony intrusion leveraged an attack campaign dubbed TraderTraitor that was disclosed by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in April 2022.

"On Friday, January 13, 2023, North Korean cyber actors used RAILGUN, a privacy protocol, to launder over $60 million worth of ethereum stolen during the June 2022 heist," the FBI said.

The cryptocurrency heists are part of malicious cyber activity orchestrated by North Korea's intelligence apparatus, the Reconnaissance General Bureau, to generate substantial revenue for the sanctions-hit nation by stealing money from financial institutions.

Data gathered by blockchain analytics company Chainalysis shows that ransomware actors extorted at least $456.8 million from victims in 2022, down from a high of $765 million and $766 million in 2020 and 2021, respectively.

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