FBI Says North Korea’s Lazarus Group is Responsible for Ronin Network’s $600M Hack
Just in, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has traced the infamous Ronin Network hack to the North Korea-based cybercrime group, Lazarus Group.
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North Korean is Behind Ronin Network Attack
Ronin confirmed the development on Thursday, writing that the US Treasury Department has sanctioned the wallet address (0x098B716B8Aaf21512996dC57EB0615e2383E2f96) involved in the attack.
“We would like to extend a thank you to all law enforcement agencies who have supported us in this ongoing investigation,” the Ronin team wrote.
On Wednesday, the hackers moved 3,300 ETH from the stolen funds to an Ethereum-based mixer protocol, Tornado Cash. Since the hack in March, more than 25,000 ETH has been cashed by hackers through the mixer protocol. At the moment, there is currently 147,753 ETH or $445 million left in the wallet.
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Ronin Bridge to Resume by Month End
At this point, it’s uncertain whether the stolen funds can be recovered. However, Sky Mavis, the game developer behind Axie Infinity and Ronin Network, is setting up measures to refund affected users. Early this month, Sky Mavis raised about $150 million to facilitate the reimbursement process.
“We are still in the process of adding additional security measures before redeploying the Ronin Bridge to mitigate future risk,” Ronin added.
The Ronin bridge is expected to be reopened towards the end of April as the security improves. This week, Sky Mavis launched a $1 million bug bounty program to help analyze and beef up the security of its services, including the Ronin Network.
This week, a former Ethereum developer Virgil Griffith was sentenced to 63 months in prison, including a $100,000 fine for siding and teaching the North Korean government how to evade sanctions using cryptocurrency.
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