{
	"id": "ad261cc8-34b6-4916-8c90-2ed08ef16285",
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	"title": "Evidence points to North Korea in CoinEx cryptocurrency hack, analysts say",
	"llm_title": "",
	"authors": "",
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	"plain_text": "Evidence points to North Korea in CoinEx cryptocurrency hack,\r\nanalysts say\r\nBy Joe Warminsky\r\nPublished: 2023-09-15 · Archived: 2026-04-05 22:29:44 UTC\r\nExperts at the cryptocurrency-tracking company Elliptic say North Korean hackers are the prime suspects in the\r\ntheft of $31 million in cryptocurrency from the CoinEx exchange reported earlier this week.\r\nThe analysts compared transactions intended to hide funds taken in the CoinEx heist with the aftermath of attacks\r\non online casino Stake.com and cryptocurrency wallet service Atomic Wallet. Both of those were linked to\r\nLazarus Group, a North Korean government operation that U.S. authorities have accused of helping fund the\r\ncountry’s illicit weapons programs.\r\n“Elliptic analysis confirms that some of the funds stolen from CoinEx were sent to an address which was used by\r\nthe Lazarus group to launder funds stolen from Stake.com, albeit on a different blockchain,” the company said\r\nFriday.\r\nThe CoinEx funds traveled through the Ethereum blockchain and then were “sent back to an address known to be\r\ncontrolled by the CoinEx hacker,” Elliptic said.\r\n“Elliptic has observed this mixing of funds from separate hacks before from Lazarus, most recently when funds\r\nstolen from Stake.com overlapped with funds stolen from Atomic Wallet,” the analysts said.\r\n“In light of this blockchain activity, and in the absence of information suggesting the CoinEx hack was conducted\r\nby any other threat group, Elliptic agrees that Lazarus Group should be suspected for the theft of funds from\r\nCoinEx,” the company said.\r\nThe CoinEx hack would represent just a fraction of the cryptocurrency thefts recently attributed to North Korea.\r\nResearchers at cryptocurrency-tracking company Chainalysis said Thursday that the value of stolen\r\ncryptocurrency associated with the country “currently exceeds $340.4 million this year,” and was $1.65 billion in\r\n2022.\r\nThe challenge for cybercriminals, as always, is to find ways to obfuscate their actions, given that blockchain\r\ntransactions are publicly trackable. The report from Chainalysis emphasized that North Korean groups ”are\r\nincreasing their use of Russia-based exchanges known to launder illicit crypto assets.”\r\nChainalysis specifically pointed to a different web of transactions related to an attack on Harmony, a company that\r\nprovides a platform for trading different kinds of digital assets. Funds taken in that case traveled through an\r\nunspecified Russian exchange. Evidence shows that North Korean groups have used that pathway for money\r\nlaundering since 2021, Chainalysis said.\r\nhttps://therecord.media/coinex-cryptocurrency-heist-north-korea\r\nPage 1 of 3\n\nLazarus also appears to be focusing its attention on certain targets lately, too, Elliptic said. Including the CoinEx\r\ntheft, in the past few months four of the five thefts attributed to Lazarus have been “centralized” cryptocurrency\r\nplatforms, meaning they’re controlled by a single entity. Decentralized finance (DeFi) services, by contrast,\r\ndistribute authority among different nodes.\r\nElliptic said there could be several reasons for the shift: DeFi services likely have improved security in recent\r\nyears, “thus reducing the scope for hackers to identify and exploit vulnerabilities.” Centralized exchanges,\r\nmeanwhile, are more susceptible to social-engineering attacks — a favorite tactic of Lazarus — because they have\r\nbigger workforces and centralized IT services.\r\nGet more insights with the\r\nRecorded Future\r\nIntelligence Cloud.\r\nLearn more.\r\nNo previous article\r\nNo new articles\r\nhttps://therecord.media/coinex-cryptocurrency-heist-north-korea\r\nPage 2 of 3\n\nJoe Warminsky\r\nis the news editor for Recorded Future News. He has three decades of experience as an editor and writer in the\r\nWashington, D.C., area. He previously he helped lead CyberScoop for more than five years. Prior to that, he was a\r\ndigital editor at WAMU 88.5, the NPR affiliate in Washington, and he spent more than a decade editing coverage\r\nof Congress for CQ Roll Call.\r\nSource: https://therecord.media/coinex-cryptocurrency-heist-north-korea\r\nhttps://therecord.media/coinex-cryptocurrency-heist-north-korea\r\nPage 3 of 3",
	"extraction_quality": 1,
	"language": "EN",
	"sources": [
		"ETDA"
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	"references": [
		"https://therecord.media/coinex-cryptocurrency-heist-north-korea"
	],
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		"coinex-cryptocurrency-heist-north-korea"
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