The largest theft of encrypted currencies .. These are its details

A billion and a half billion dollars is the outcome of the theft of international experts, the “largest in the history of encrypted currencies”, which was the victim of the “Bybit” platform, while several parties suggested that the person responsible for this is pirates from North Korea.

The theft process took place last Friday for 400,000 units of the encrypted ethereum in its forms, as the pirates at the time took advantage of a loophole at the user interface, according to a statement to the affected company.

What did “Bay Bit”?
The company said that the attack took place during the transfer of these units from one of its cold governorates to a warm portfolio.

And cold “a very safe type of cryptocurrency portfolios that maintain your own keys is not connected to the Internet, away from potential threats online”, unlike the hot connected to the Internet and more likely to penetrate, according to the “Caribamos” website.

“Bybit” was established in 2018, and it is one of the largest encrypted currency trading platforms around the world, treating more than $ 36 billion as an average of daily trading volume, based in Dubai in the Emirates.

Before penetration, according to the data of the company “Coin Market Cap”, the platform owned about $ 16.2 billion in digital assets, which means that stolen ethereum is equivalent to 9 percent of its total assets.

In June 2024, Bloomberg said that BYBIT became the second largest trading platform in terms of global trading volume.

This theft led directly to the decrease in the price of Ethereum by about 8% of its highest level on Friday. Other encrypted currencies also decreased, as Bitcoin lost about 5% of its value compared to its highest level on the same day.

Check Point said that the attackers may have identified multiple signers responsible for approval of transactions, and then penetrated their devices using software, fraudulent hunting, or Supply Chain Attack.

For its part, “bybit” explained that the pirates took advantage of a loophole at the user interface, as they made it look as if the money was transferred to the correct address.

But they manipulated the logic of the basic smart contract, which gave them full control of the cold wallet, after which they could convert the assets into a title they control, adding “Bybit”.

Several platforms witnessed laundry of the stolen money, some of which were restored, and the last freezing after following the money movements.

Refund bonus
According to the latest update from “Bybit”, yesterday, Monday, the company managed to recover about 43 million dollars after some cryptocurrency platforms began to freeze stolen money.

“Bybit” launched a program of rewards for money recovery, as it offers rewards of up to 10% of the amount refunds for anyone who helps restore stolen assets.

She assured her customers that their assets are guaranteed, and that the company is still able to fulfill its obligations even if the stolen money is not completely prepared.

In an attempt to reassure customers, the CEO of “Bybit” appeared in a live broadcast on the X platform, announcing that the company obtained temporary loans from partners and securing approximately 80% of the funds needed to compensate for losses.

He said that “bybit” will seek to recover money and take the necessary legal measures against pirates.

He continued, according to what was reported by the agency “Bloomberg”: “Your money is safe, and the withdrawals are still available. The platform has processed more than 70% of withdrawal requests since the hack. We are not currently buying any ethereum unit to compensate for the stolen assets on the platform. ”

And last Sunday, the Luke On Chen platform has published via X, a table of loans obtained by the affected company, and amounted to about $ 1.2 billion.

Theft and money laundering
According to the company “Eliptic”, which specializes in blockchain analysis, the pirates gradually transfer the stolen ethereum to Bitcoin using the “Exch” platform that refused to freeze funds, in addition to other services.

And if the process continues in the same style, she said that Mixers will be used soon to hide the impact of transfers, but it may be difficult, due to the huge size of the stolen assets, according to the website “Ciciurty Wake”, which specializes in cybersecurity.

For his part, the Blockchain provider “Nansen” stated that the attackers first withdrew approximately $ 1.5 billion of funds to a major portfolio, and then distributed it between more than 40 wallets.

“The pirates converted all the assets of STTH, Cmeth and Meth to ETH, then transferred the stolen ethereum in 27 million dollars for each transaction to more than 10 additional portfolios.”

In March 2022, former US President Joe Biden issued an executive order, which current President Donald Trump soon canceled, just three days after his inauguration last January.
North Korea and “historical” theft
North Korea’s penetration companies and experts, specifically the Lazaros group, known for launching major attacks on cryptocurrencies.

The famous analyst Zachbt was one of the first to refer to North Korea’s responsibility for the attack, based on the use of headlines previously associated with state -backed piracy.

The “TRM LABS” intelligence platform said that it has a “high degree of confidence” that the attack was carried out from North Korea, based on great interference between the headlines used by pirates and another linked to previous rafts carried out by North Korea.

For its part, the company “Eliptic” linked the attack in North Korea based on several factors, including methods used to laundering stolen money.

According to the company, the pirates in just two hours of carrying out the theft converted money into 50 different portfolios, which are systematically unloaded.

Money was washed through central or central trading platforms, in addition to the use of bridges between the block-chain bridges.

Bitcoin continued to destroy its record numbers, recorded an unprecedented value, on Monday, at a time when cryptocurrencies recorded positive levels since the beginning of this year.
In late 2024, the US FBI officially accused North Korea’s pirates of stealing $ 308 million from the “Bitcoin.dmm.com” platform.

The US government has also previously accused “Lazaros” of hacking “Ronin”, which amounted to $ 600 million.

In a joint report, the United States, Japan and South Korea confirmed that North Korea pirates stole nearly 660 million dollars of cryptocurrencies during 2024 alone.

Tom Robinson, the founding partner of “Elliptic”, described the attack as “the largest theft of encrypted currencies ever and a large difference,” noting that the following theft in size was the theft of $ 611 million from the “Poly Network” platform in 2021.

“In fact, this may be the biggest individual theft, not only in the encrypted currency sector,” he added. (Free)