North Korea's Lazarus Group responsible for Bybit hack resulting in losses of over $1.5 billion: Arkham

Arkham Intelligence said Lazarus Group hacked Bybit for over $1.5 billion on Friday, citing information provided by online sleuth ZachXBT.

"At 19:09 UTC today, ZachXBT submitted definitive proof that this attack on ByBit was performed by the LAZARUS GROUP," Arkham said in a post to X. "His submission included a detailed analysis of test transactions and connected wallets used ahead of the exploit, as well as multiple forensics graphs and timing analyses. The submission has been shared with the Bybit team in support of their investigation."

Earlier in the day Bybit confirmed it had suffered a massive security breach that led to the loss of over $1.5 billion in crypto assets. The company's co-founder and CEO Ben Zhao later said that all client withdrawals will be processed, even if they are under review." Arkham quickly offered a bounty of 50,000 ARKM, worth roughly $32,000, to whomever could determine who orchestrated the hack.

The hack is being considered the largest single theft in crypto's history.

"For immediate sake, we are currently reaching out to our partners to give us a bridge loan," Zhou said in a Friday livestream. "So, currently, we are not buying [Ethereum]. And even if we did want to buy, it is too big of amount to be moving around."

Last year, ZachXBT said they found that some $35 million connected to the exploit Japanese crypto exchange DMM Bitcoin had been laundered via Huione Guarantee. The DMM Bitcoin hack ranked as the biggest crypto theft of 2024, as the exchange lost over 4,500 BTC, valued at over $300 million at the time

Lazarus Group, a notorious unit of crypto protocol hackers, was thought to also be behind the hack DMM Bitcoin hack. "It is suspected that Lazarus Group is behind the hack due to similarities in laundering techniques and off-chain indicators," ZachXBT said at the time.