According to on-chain reports, North Korean hackers are implicated in the $235 million attack on the WazirX exchange. What is the story?
WazirX Hack
Today, Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX reported that it was the victim of a large-scale attack against it. According to on-chain data, more than 200 different crypto assets were stolen, totaling around $235 million.
Among the stolen assets we find Shiba Inu (SHIB) worth $102 million, but also $53 million worth of Ether, $11 million worth of MATIC and $8 million worth of PEPE, among others.
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The hack targeted one of the multi-signature wallets of the WazirX exchange. Cryptographic security company Blocksec explains:
It seems that there is a private key leak in the WazirX exchange. The leaked private keys are used to upgrade a secure multi-signature wallet, which contains a large number of assets, to a malicious contract. Then, the malicious contract is used to drain most of the assets from the secure wallet
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What on-chain analysis reveals
Elliptic, an on-chain analytics firm, said in a report released today that The hackers behind the hack are affiliated with North Korea.
Indeed, following the WazirX hack, the stolen funds were destined for a Tornado Cash address, for the purpose of concealing and laundering funds. According to Elliptic, this kind of maneuver would be consistent with the behavior demonstrated by North Korean hackers in previous incidents.
Additionally, on-chain investigator ZachXBT highlighted evidence indicting a KYC address for receiving funds from the platform hack. This action earned him a bonus offered by the on-chain analysis company Arkham, who also communicated the said address to the WazirX exchange.
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More recently, Arkham announced on its X account that All SHIBs were sold by hackers :
UPDATE: The WazirX Hacker is out of SHIB.
$102.1M SHIB was stolen this morning from WazirX and has now been fully sold off by the attacker. pic.twitter.com/sjCSZJhdIv
— Arkham (@ArkhamIntel) July 18, 2024
Although the hackers succeeded in their heist by stealing the substantial sum of 235 million dollars, many analysis companies as well as on-chain investigators are currently taking turns to track down and identify them.
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Source: Elliptic
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Passionate about the blockchain ecosystem, I like to deepen my knowledge and share my discoveries. In a perpetual quest to learn more about cryptos, I recently joined the Cryptoast Research team where I provide weekly fundamental analysis.
Theo Zananiri
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