U.S. holds North Korea responsible for stealing $1.5 billion from ByBit crypto exchange


02/27/2025

On February 26, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation issued an alert stating that it holds North Korean officials accountable for the $1.5 billion theft of Ethereum cryptocurrency from the ByBit exchange. According to initial intelligence reports, the thefts took place on February 21.



Ivan Radic
In its message, the FBI states that the fund withdrawal was accomplished through a set of programs referred to by the U.S. intelligence agency as TraderTraitor.

TraderTraitor comprises a collection of harmful apps that masquerade as cryptocurrency trading utilities. These applications were developed from authentic open-source software. According to an FBI bulletin from April 18, 2022, they were created in JavaScript with Node.js utilizing the Electron framework.

The same report disclosed that TraderTraitor is utilized by a faction of hackers funded by North Korean officials, referred to by cybersecurity analysts as Lazarus Group, APT38, BlueNoroff, and Stardust Chollima. Their actions have been documented since 2020.

source: cnn.com