"North Korea Seizes 58 Billion Upbit"... First Verification of Virtual Asset Crimes

A police investigation confirmed that a North Korean hacking organization was responsible for the theft of coins worth 58 billion won by Upbit, a virtual asset exchange, in 2019.

The National Police Agency's National Investigation Headquarters said today (21st) that it has confirmed that Lazarus and Andaryl, a hacker group under the North Korean Reconnaissance General Bureau, stole 342,000 Ethereum stored by Upbit.

This is the first time that a cyber attack on a domestic virtual asset exchange has been found to have been committed by North Korea, and police found traces of the use of North Korean words such as North Korean IP addresses and "unimportant things" during the crime.

They stole 58 billion won worth of virtual currency at the time and 1.47 trillion won at the current market price, and the police estimate that most of the criminal proceeds were cashed in and flowed to North Korea.

It was found that 57% of the stolen virtual assets were exchanged for bitcoin at three sites believed to have been run by North Korea, while the rest were laundered at 51 overseas exchanges and flowed into North Korea in cash.

Police confirmed that some of the damage was stored on the Swiss exchange and returned 600 million won worth of money to Upbit last month, and are continuing to investigate whether there is any other criminal situation.