North Korean hackers linked to the infamous Lazarus hacking group have been identified as being behind the theft of more than 4,500 bitcoins from Japanese cryptocurrency exchange DMM Bitcoin earlier this year.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, in conjunction with the Department of Defense Cyber Crime Center and National Police Agency of Japan, has revealed that hackers who go by the name of TraderTraitor, an arm of Lazarus, successfully stole the equivalent of $308 million from DMM in May and have detailed how the North Korean hackers did so.

The investigation into the hack found that in late March 2024, a North Korean cyber actor pretending to be a recruiter on LinkedIn contacted an employee at Ginco, a Japanese enterprise cryptocurrency wallet software company. The threat actor sent the target, who maintained access to Ginco’s wallet management system, a URL linked to a malicious Python script under the guise of a pre-employment test located on a GitHub page. The victim copied the Python code to their personal GitHub page and was subsequently compromised.

With the access gained, the TraderTraitor hackers sat patiently, waiting until May to exploit their access. To steal the bitcoin, the actors exploited session cookie information to impersonate the compromised employee and successfully gained access to Ginco’s unencrypted communications system. With this access, it’s believed that the hackers then manipulated a legitimate transaction request from a DMM employee, resulting in the theft of 4,502.9 bitcoin.

The stolen bitcoin was subsequently transferred to TraderTraitor-controlled wallets, which ultimately lead back to the North Korean government.

“The FBI, National Police Agency of Japan and other U.S. government and international partners will continue to expose and combat North Korea’s use of illicit activities — including cybercrime and cryptocurrency theft — to generate revenue for the regime,” the FBI noted in a statement.

The involvement of both North Korea and an arm of Lazarus in the hack comes as no surprise, as the hack of DMM isn’t the first time Lazarus has targeted cryptocurrency exchanges.

In 2022, Lazarus was linked to the hack on the Ronin Network that led to the theft of $615 million in cryptocurrency, and more recently, in July, the group was linked to the theft of $234.9 million in cryptocurrency from India-based cryptocurrency exchange WazirX.

Image: SiliconANGLE/Ideogram

A North Korea-linked hacker group stole digital assets worth 48.2 billion yen ($307 million) from Tokyo-based cryptocurrency exchange DMM Bitcoin Co. in May, Japanese police said Tuesday.

The hacker group was identified by the police as TraderTraitor following an investigation conducted in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Defense and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

DMM Bitcoin said earlier this month it will go out of business after suspending some of its services following the detection of the unauthorized leakage of funds on May 31.

The police tracked the flow of stolen bitcoin to an account managed by the group, which is suspected to be linked to the Lazarus hacking group allegedly sponsored by the North Korean government.

The investigation found that an employee at a company that manages DMM Bitcoin’s cryptocurrency accounts was contacted via the LinkedIn social network by a person purporting to be a headhunter.

The perpetrator then breached the wallet management system by planting malware and falsified transaction amounts as well as the destinations of remittances, the police said.

In September, Japan’s Financial Services Agency ordered the exchange to improve operations, saying its risk management structure was inadequate.

No customers suffered financial damage as the exchange secured 55 billion yen from a group firm to cover the lost assets.

The police, the FBI, and other U.S. government and international partners will “continue to expose and combat North Korea’s use of illicit activities,” including cybercrime and cryptocurrency theft, to generate revenue for the regime, they said in a statement.

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As more people become aware of the negative environmental impacts of advancements in technology, certain industries and businesses are looking to pivot and remake their images in the name of the green transition.

In the cryptocurrency world, Ethereum in 2022 changed its modus operandi from proof of work to proof of stake — and reduced its energy consumption in doing so by nearly 100%. This switch was projected to reduce the company’s pollution from 11 million tons of carbon each year to 870 tons, and it doubled its value to $600 billion.

Bitcoin adherents are touting its ability to contribute to a cleaner future, too. Daniel Batten, an analyst and climate investor, has said that mining operations can help renewable energy farms become immediately profitable and drive continued investment in that industry. 

Bitcoin, though, still generates an estimated 95 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually, per the University of Cambridge’s Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index. That’s a figure some insiders, such as Batten, say is out of step with the latest percentages of renewable energy, which a Bloomberg analyst has put at over 50%, and indeed the Cambridge index says “the estimates currently displayed on our website are grounded on electricity mix data available as of January 2022.” A lot has changed in the nearly three years since, with many professional mining operations going off the grid with renewable energy to improve their long-term return on investment. 

These blockchain-based marketplaces provide examples of where the technology has been, how it has changed, and where it’s going. Other breakthroughs could help crypto contribute to sustainability, as CCN reported.

“Skeptics question whether the environmental benefits of blockchain outweigh its energy costs,” Lorena Nessi wrote. “Some argue that while blockchain offers tools for climate solutions, the emissions from mining and other processes may offset these gains.”

The reason many people are so high on the technology is because it offers an efficient, decentralized alternative to traditional methods.

Take, for example, how blockchain has transformed a couple of cities as they relate to the energy industry, as CCN relayed. In New York and Western Australia, homeowners can generate, buy, sell, and trade solar energy. Blockchain technology allows for transparent transactions, enabling the creation of a free market, encouraging the use of renewable energy, and ensuring energy independence while supporting the local economy.

Other developments facilitated by blockchain include the granting of tokens for sustainable behaviors, such as recycling or reducing energy use. The “tamper-proof system” also means ledgers can be created to monitor the environment and verify climate data as well as manage carbon credits, which could revolutionize the questionable nature of such programs. 

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But CCN noted that integrating artificial intelligence — another energy-sapping technology — and overly relying on such tools, which lack regulation, are great risks.

The wealthy companies that use blockchain, AI, and other inventions that stress the electrical grid have the power to make this change a reality. Otherwise, it will remain up to the public to try to hold them and their executives accountable.

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