Lazarus group is reportedly believed to be behind Horizon and Ronin Bridge hacks, which has prompted Harmony to start a global manhunt to stem the tide of their attacks.
According to the most recent reports, the infamous North Korean Lazarus Group is responsible for the $100 million hacks of the Horizon bridge. According to the Bloomberg article, Elliptic Enterprises, based in London, was actively tracking the stolen assets and came to this conclusion.
Washington believes the Lazarus Group was acting on orders from North Korea’s clandestine intelligence organization. According to Elliptic’s report:
“The theft was perpetrated by compromising the cryptographic keys of a multi-signature wallet – likely through a social engineering attack on Harmony team members. Such techniques have frequently been used by the Lazarus Group.”
According to the investigation, the Elliptic Group has committed multiple such crimes totaling more than $2 billion. The Group is also suspected of being behind the $540 million Ronin Bridge attack earlier this year.
All stolen assets have already been converted into ETH, and the money has begun to be mixed in the crypto mixer Tornado Cash to launder proceeds and disguise the traceability of funds. As of June 27, almost 35,000 ETH worth nearly $40 million had been transmitted to Tornado Cash, with the remainder in the process.
On Tuesday, June 29, Harmony hired blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis to track down the perpetrators of the attack. Previously, Harmony Protocol offered a $1 million bounty for the hacker to return $100 million and guaranteed no criminal actions.
However, in the most recent update, Harmony raised the reward bid to $10 million. Harmony stated in its final terms of negotiation, “We are providing one FINAL opportunity for the actor(s) to restore stolen funds with anonymity.” Our FINAL term is listed below. Keep $10 million and return the rest of the stolen money. Harmony will end its probe in exchange.” Harmony has given the hackers until July 4 to repay the funds.
Harmony also stated that it had begun a global manhunt. It notes:
“Harmony has begun a global manhunt for the criminal(s) who stole $100M from the Horizon bridge. All exchanges have been notified. Law enforcement, @Chainalysis, and @AnChainAI have active investigations to identify the responsible actors and recover the stolen assets.”
