The hackers stole more cryptocurrency in one attack than all the funds stolen by North Korean cyber criminals in 2024, when the rogue state’s cyber attackers made off with around $1.3bn in digital coins, according to cryptocurrency analysts Chainalysis.
Crypto once again showing why it’s either just a casino with extra steps or a way to buy drugs rather than a serious solution for any currency or real world transactions.
It’s so amazing and digital and modern and easy to steal.
Wait till you learn about USD
Used for food, rent, bills, buying houses and cars, buying appliances and various tech, paying contractors, paying instructors/trainers in every field online or in person, paying for trips to the other side of the world, easily exchange for foreign currency… Etc.?
That USD?
Yeah, the one that’s used to launder money, buy drugs, and gamble more than any other currency in the world
Mostly because it’s the main currency, no?
For criminals yeah
You’re insane.
Guess you dont know much about money laundering
Wait till you try to buy a coffee or pump your gas or pay rent with crypto. Go do your next transaction today with your crypto of choice I’m sure it’ll be very smooth.
I’m not an assshole so I dont buy gas. But I have bought many a coffee and pizza and sushi with crypto. And I’m paying my rent now with crypto
What’s your point?
You’re not an asshole for buying gas but ok.
Where are you where all these services take crypto and which coin? You do all this without ever converting to your local currency? These vendors take the coins directly?
There is a such thing as progress.
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Some vendors take crypto. Most just take gift cards.
Eg airbnb
If you are converting your crypto into gift cards and then spending gift cards that is not the same as spending crypto. That is the entire point.
If you are converting time into magical bank credits and bank credits into USD then thats not the same as spending cash. That is the entire point.
Yeah, but crypto bros specifically told me “Blockchain! Anonymous cryptographic fungible NFT AI!”
Love me a fungible non fungible token
North Korea’s GDP would technically be up 5% from this. Great success.
Say what you want about North Korea but they’re the only one ballsy enough to take care of our right-wingers.
Looks like hexbear will be funded after all
Sadly I’m afraid Hexbear doesn’t get the Xi-bux it rightly deserves, it’s even blocked by the great Chinese firewall (thought the reasons aren’t clear). I wish the left was as well funded as people claim :(
You joke, but it looks like they actually did manage to regain their domain. Not sure how.
Last I read, the admin who was a day late in paying Sav for the renewal was actually able to transfer the domain to a different registrar (PorkBun) before Sav’s auction of the domain was complete. This maneuver was either something that Sav’s auction designers hadn’t anticipated, or the auction was compromised because the main bidder (j_s_) was a hexbear user who’d found a way to make unauthenticated bids.
At any rate, I don’t think they paid thousands for it.
Isn’t it only worth 1.5 billion if you manage to sell it? How would you liquidate this much crypto?
Launder it and slowly sell it off through sock puppets.
They’re a nation-state level actor, they have significant resources of their own and solid ties to both China and Russia, who are even more skilled and have even more resources.
Did Kim steal Musk’s jacket?
First of all, I love that this is an AOL link. AOL is still around, eh?
Second, isn’t crypto supposed to be trackable in the ledger? How are they hiding that much coin under a new name? That’s the whole point of crypto.
Why would they need to hide it?
That’s a good point, but I’m not sure that’s in crypto’s favor. Since we know who now owns the stolen crypto, would someone buy it from them? Who is going to honor it? So, does the exchange just go defunct and everyone is out, or…?
Depends on the coin. Bitcoin is more trackable than cash. But privacy coins provide…privacy
There are ways to clean crypto, by mixing it with other sources. See crypto mixers
I’m sure Trump will give Kim high fives
Any technical juicy deets?
They phished an employee and got cold-wallet access.
Can’t people just stop trading that specific coin? Or just say it’s now worth 1$?
This was a targeted attack against a cryptocurrency exchange. The specific crypto happened to be Ethereum (ETH), but more importantly the hackers were able to identify and target the specific employees needed for their multi-signature transactions, and infect their machines with malware to alter the user interface and show different destination wallet addresses. The exchange Bybit has offered a 10% bounty which could earn whitehats up to $140 million for any funds recovered, but I would be very surprised to see huge success with the use of mixers and such.
Is this the cause of the dip?
I’m impressed. As the old Arabic poem goes ليتني كوري شمالي
The record haul comes as Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s supreme leader, turns to elite units of computer hackers to prop up the Communist dictatorship’s failing economy.
I’m no apologist for NK, but this sentence is glaringly missing a nod to Western sanctions that caused the failing economy. It’s mentioned some paragraphs later, but I can’t not notice the subtle propaganda.
Are you implying that we should be openly trading with NK and funding their government? Seriously?
No, I’m saying that not acknowledging that sanctions caused the economy to fail is intended to make readers think that it failed because of Communism rather than being blocked from trade with most of the world.
Fish that bites its own tail. North Korea is weird as it is because of the isolation imposed on it after the country was quite literally levelled by US bombings. That’s the historical and materialist events that gave rise to “juche” ideology in the way North Korea understands it now. I think you’d be pretty scared of outsiders if your country had been as close to literally entirely destroyed as it gets by foreign bombing, and if when you tried to rebuild your economy you had been subjected to an almost complete economic blockade.
