North Korean hackers suspected of stealing $ 100 million from Harmony blockchain

According to Elliptic Connect analysts, North Korean hackers from the Lazarus Group are involved in the attack on the Horizon Bridge of the Harmony blockchain, which resulted in the stealing of $ 100 million.

Currently, there is no data that 100% confirms the analysts' guesses, but they have published several possible «clues» on their official website:

• Lazarus Group is known for cyberattacks on interconnection bridges, the amount of their illegal earnings is estimated at $ 2 billion (the group is believed to be behind the attack on Ronin Bridge, which runs the popular Axie Infinity game);
• the theft of funds from Harmony was carried out by hacking the cryptographic keys of the wallet — this method was often used by Lazarus hackers;
• Lazarus Group focuses on attacks on cryptocurrency platforms in the Asia-Pacific region — APAC (possibly due to language reasons) — many members of the Harmony team have connections to APAC;
• the regularity of money laundering through Tornado Cash (according to the FBI, it was Lazarus who stole $ 625 million from the popular Axie Infinity game and withdrew this money through Tornado Cash) — this is how the funds stolen from Harmony are currently being laundered.

As of yesterday, hackers have laundered $ 36 million of the stolen $ 100 million. They made three transactions from the address used in the attack on the Horizon Bridge on June 23. At the time of writing, the total amount of laundered funds is about 30,000 ETH ($ 36 million), with part of the amount still remaining on the hackers' cryptocurrency wallet.