- Cryptocurrency exchange Bybit launches bounty program offering 5% rewards for helping trace stolen funds from Lazarus Group hack.
- New website tracks 6,338 wallet addresses connected to Lazarus Group activities.
- $42.3 million of stolen assets have been frozen so far, representing 3% of total stolen funds.
- CEO Ben Zhou commits to maintaining dedicated team for tracking stolen assets.
- Initiative represents first transparent tracking system for Lazarus Group’s cryptocurrency movements.
In an unprecedented move against state-sponsored cyber theft, cryptocurrency exchange Bybit has launched an aggressive counter-offensive against North Korea‘s Lazarus Group, establishing a public tracking system for stolen funds and offering bounties for successful asset recovery.
CEO Ben Zhou announced the initiative following the platform’s recent $1.5 billion hack, declaring it the first transparent system for monitoring the group’s money laundering activities. The program incentivizes community participation by offering investigators 5% of any recovered assets.
The tracking website currently monitors 6,338 addresses linked to Lazarus Group operations. Early efforts have yielded some success, with $42.3 million in stolen assets already frozen – though this represents just over 3% of the total theft.
“We have assigned a team to dedicate to maintain and update this website, we will not stop until Lazarus or bad actors in the industry is eliminated,” Zhou stated, indicating plans to expand the platform to assist other hack victims.
This crowdsourced approach marks a shift in cryptocurrency security strategies. Traditional cyber investigations typically rely on private security firms and law enforcement, but Bybit’s initiative leverages the blockchain’s transparent nature and community expertise to combat sophisticated state-sponsored attacks.
The Lazarus Group, a North Korean state-sponsored Hacking collective, has become notorious in the cryptocurrency space, responsible for several major heists including the $625 million Ronin Bridge hack in 2022. This latest attack on Bybit represents their largest operation to date, surpassing previous cryptocurrency thefts by a significant margin.
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