Almost 17 percent higher than the same period in 2022.
Attackers have pilfered $2.17 billion worth of cryptocurrency from heists during the first six months of the year.
This is not only more than the amount stolen for the entirety of 2024 but also nearly 17 percent higher than the same period in 2022.
North Korean hackers' attack against leading Dubai-based crypto exchange Bybit, which led to the loss of over $1.4 billion, has driven the increase in crypto heist proceeds, according to findings from Chainalysis and reported by TechCrunch.
Such an incident was regarded by Chainalysis to be part of North Korea's strategy in obtaining funds for its nuclear weapons program following sanctions from the West. Other income-generating techniques employed by North Korea include its fake IT worker scheme, which involve the infiltration of remote workers in tech firms for intellectual property theft and subsequent extortion.
Written by
Dan Raywood is a B2B journalist with 25 years of experience, including covering cybersecurity for the past 17 years. He has extensively covered topics from Advanced Persistent Threats and nation-state hackers to major data breaches and regulatory changes.
He has spoken at events including 44CON, Infosecurity Europe, RANT Forum, BSides Scotland, Steelcon and the National Cyber Security Show, and served as editor of SC Media UK, Infosecurity Magazine and IT Security Guru. He was also an analyst with 451 Research and a product marketing lead at Tenable.
