Crypto exchange Bybit announced a breach and hacker attack, as a result of which, according to analysts, almost $1.5 billion worth of tokens were lost.
Crypto exchange Bybit announced a breach and hacker attack, as a result of which, according to analysts, almost $1.5 billion worth of tokens were lost.
According to Bloomberg, this is currently the largest cryptocurrency theft ever committed in the industry.
The exchange’s CEO, Ben Zhou, said in a post on X on Friday that hackers had taken control of one of Bybit’s offline Ethereum wallets.
According to posts on Telegram by online analyst ZachXBT, assets worth about $1.46 billion were withdrawn from the wallet as a result of a series of suspicious transactions.
Research firm Arkham Intelligence confirmed the outflow of about $1.4 billion from the exchange, noting that «funds have begun to move to new addresses where they are being sold.»
According to data from analytics company Elliptic, this hack is the largest theft in the history of the crypto market, significantly exceeding the $611 million stolen from Poly Network in 2021.
Zhou went live on the X platform in an attempt to allay concerns among customers about the hack. He said the exchange has taken out bridge loans with partners and secured about 80% of the funding needed to cover the losses. In the meantime, Bybit will try to recover the funds and take necessary measures against the hackers.
He added that the exchange had processed over 70% of all withdrawal requests after the hack.
Bybit, founded in 2018, is one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, processing over $36 billion per day. According to CoinMarketCap, the Dubai-based platform had assets on the exchange worth approximately $16.2 billion, making the stolen ether equivalent to about 9% of its total assets.
According to research firm Nansen, the funds stolen from Bybit on Friday consisted of around $1.12 billion worth of ether, with the rest being ether derivatives. The tokens were initially transferred to a single wallet and then dispersed across more than 40 wallets.
The attacker converted all ether derivatives into ether and then transferred the ether to over 10 additional wallets.
Analysts from Arkham Intelligence attributed the hack to the North Korean hacking group Lazarus.
Previously, dev.ua prepared an extensive article about how North Korean hackers steal cryptocurrency and use it to finance their country’s military programs.
As for Bybit, it is one of the most popular platforms among Ukrainians. Thus, the Bybit crypto exchange is used by 71,2% of our compatriots who deal with cryptocurrency transactions.
