North Korean Hackers Suspected Stealing $35 Mln from Crypto Firm

North Korean hackers are believed that they had stolen a new $35 million from a cryptocurrency service, crypto-tracking experts told CNN.

It is believed that North Korea hacks cryptocurrency firms to get more money to fund its nuclear and ballistic weapons programs, according to US officials.

The North Korean hackers attacked certain cryptocurrency users on an Estonian-based crypto firm, called Atomic Wallet, which has reportedly five million users. Earlier this week, Atomic Wallet said that less than 1% of its users had been affected due to this hack, but it did not clarify how much money had been stolen or who was behind the hack.

Some of the victims used Twitter in posting their crypto addresses in an attempt to beg the hackers for their money back.

London-based crypto-tracking firm Elliptic said that the hacking technique and tools used against Atomic Wallet are from North Korea.

Also, a cryptocurrency tracker known as ZachXBT told CNN: “The pattern was similar to what we saw with the laundering of Harmony funds back in January,” pointing to the $100 million stolen from Harmony.

Earlier in February, the United Nations said in a report that North Korea topped the world’s countries in terms of crypto hackers, who stole crypto assets in 2022 more than any year before.

The report, which was submitted to the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee on North Korea last week, reportedly found North Korean hackers stole crypto assets with a value ranging between $630 million and more than $1 billion last year after attacking networks of defense companies and foreign aerospace.

The UN report pointed out that the North Korean attacks were more complicated than in previous years, making the process of tracking stolen crypto assets more difficult than ever.