Changpeng Zhao, who also goes by the name of CZ, is known as the CEO of the Binance crypto exchange. During an interview, CZ made an important announcement. He talked about a recent hack attack on the Axie Infinity project, where the threat actors were able to get away with millions of dollars’ worth of cryptocurrencies. CZ claims that the cyber security team at Binance was able to recover some of the stolen funds.
According to his claims, Binance IT support has managed to recover around $5.8 million from the cyber-attack that has been linked to the North Korean hacking group. It is worth mentioning that the hackers were able to take off with $600 million worth of crypto tokens from the Axie Infinity play-to-earn platform. The hack attack has been traced back to the infamous Lazarus Group.
North Korean Hackers have Become Active Once Again
Lazarus is just one of the feared hackers hailing from North Korea that are found to be involved in the biggest tech heist in recent history. Another such hacking group that purported to have support from the authoritarian government of North Korea was involved with the hacking of colonial pipelines in the United States. The US intelligence agencies were also able to recover a small fraction of the ransom that the hackers stole.
CZ recently tweeted about the incident explaining that the cryptocurrency exchange was able to recover the stolen funds because the hackers moved a small fraction of their loot on Binance. He further claimed that around 86 accounts were seized and chose to keep the identity of the account owners anonymous. It is unclear how Binance will proceed with reimbursing the victims of the attack.
PeckShield analysts recently shed light on how hackers are trying to use cryptocurrency organizations like Tornado Cash. TC is a payment mixing protocol that runs on the Ethereum network. The hackers put their stolen currencies on the network to wash the traces or diminish the data about the source of the transaction.
According to PeckSheild statistics, around 7.5% of hackers use similar services to wash the stolen currencies. After the attack, the cyber security team at Axie Infinity told the players that the firm was working in tandem with all major cryptocurrency exchanges to uncover the hackers and recover the stolen funds. Binance also facilitated a $150 million funding event for another play-to-earn project called Sky Mavis that was raising money to help victims of the Axie Infinity hack.