One of the world's largest virtual currency transaction platforms, Bybit, was hacked, resulting in the theft of $1.5 billion (approximately 2.15 trillion won) worth of virtual currency. This is the largest theft of virtual currency on record.
Bybit posted a notice on its website on the 22nd, stating, "On the 21st, we discovered unusual activity in one of our Ethereum cold wallets (an offline virtual currency wallet not connected to the internet) during a routine transaction process, resulting in the theft of 400,000 Ethereum and staked Ethereum (stETH)." The company indicated that the value of the stolen virtual currency exceeds $1.5 billion.
Bybit explained, "While transferring Ethereum from the Ethereum Multisig cold wallet to the hot wallet (an online connected virtual currency wallet), the transaction was manipulated through a sophisticated attack, and the stolen Ethereum was transferred to an unidentified address."
After the hacking incident was made public, there was a rush of withdrawals by anxious users. Ben Zhou, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Bybit, noted that he secured bridge loans from third-party partners to cover irretrievable losses and maintain operations in order to allay the concerns.
CEO Zhou left a message on social media platform X, stating, "Even if we cannot recover the hacked virtual currency, Bybit has the capacity to pay, and we can absorb the losses."
Blockchain analysis corporations Elliptic raised the possibility that this hacking was carried out by North Korea's Lazarus Group. Lazarus is known to have hacked virtual currency transaction platforms multiple times. It was reported that Lazarus stole $200 million worth of Bitcoin by hacking several South Korean virtual currency exchanges in 2017. The attack on the Indian virtual currency exchange WazirX is also suspected to be the work of Lazarus. North Korea is accused of laundering the stolen virtual currency and using the proceeds to maintain its regime and develop nuclear capabilities.