North Korean Lazarus Group likely behind CoinEx's $55 million hack: ZachXBT

Quick Take

  • On-chain data suggests that North Korea’s Lazarus Group was likely behind the recent CoinEx hack.
  • A link was found between the CoinEx hack and the recent attack on Stake.com, which the FBI said was orchestrated by Lazarus.

North Korea’s Lazarus Group was likely behind the $55 million hack of crypto exchange CoinEx, according to on-chain data sourced by crypto sleuth ZachXBT.

A link was found between the attack on CoinEx and the recent hack of betting platform Stake.com, which the FBI had claimed was orchestrated by Lazarus.

An Ethereum ETH +0.73% wallet address was found that was likely owned by the orchestrators of both attacks, suggesting the attacks were carried out by the same group. This wallet address, which had received funds from Stake.com, interacted with the wallet address that received the stolen funds from CoinEx, ZachXBT noted.

Estimates of the size of the CoinEx hack, initially estimated at around $28 million, have risen to about $55 million. This is according to spreadsheet data aggregated by security firm SlowMist, which breaks down the assets stolen and their respective values.

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The stolen assets include $6 million in bitcoin, $18.5 million in ether, and $6 million in XRP -1.17% .

CoinEx has temporarily halted deposits and withdrawals while it investigates the hack. The exchange promised that affected parties would receive 100% compensation.


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About Author

Tim is the Editor-In-Chief of The Block. Prior to joining The Block, Tim was a news editor at Decrypt. He has earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of York and studied news journalism at Press Association Training. Follow him on X @Timccopeland.

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