Hackers Behind DMM Crypto Exchange’s $305,000,000 Bitcoin Heist Move 850 BTC: Blockchain Security Firm

The hackers who plundered $305 million worth of Bitcoin from a Japanese crypto exchange earlier this year are moving their BTC.

In May, the Japanese trading platform DMM Bitcoin lost 4,502.9 BTC in what the crypto investigative firm Chainalysis called “the seventh-largest crypto hack ever.”

The blockchain security firm PeckShield says wallets associated with the hackers moved roughly 850 BTC worth more than $54 million to six different addresses this week.

The cybercriminals, who on-chain sleuths suspect could be linked to the North Korean hacking outfit known as the Lazarus Group, likely used one of two methods to loot the funds, according to the crypto security company Beosin.

“1. A traditional exchange attack. The signature service of DMM Bitcoin is attacked or the multi-sig private key is compromised. Then the attacker used a similar historical transfer address to receive funds to avoid detection and alert.

2. The exchange wallet controller suffered from an address spoofing scam, that is, only the first five digits and the last two digits of the receiving address were checked during the transfer, resulting in the transfer to the hacker address.”

Bitcoin is trading at $63,852 at time of writing. The top-ranked crypto asset by market cap is up more than 5% in the past 24 hours.

Generated Image: Midjourney