• The Lazarus Group, a group of hackers, breached the Harmony bridge and stole around $100 million worth of cryptocurrencies.
• Elliptic, Huobi, and Binance have been coordinating for some time to freeze funds that have been stolen by the group.
• Recently, they managed to freeze another $1.4 million in cryptocurrencies from accounts that were believed to belong to the Lazarus Group.
Harmony Bridge Breach
The Lazarus Group recently breached the Harmony bridge during which time they managed to make off with about $100 million in cryptocurrencies. Multiple cashout attempts were made since then, with an estimated $91 million having seen attempted cashouts so far. The most recent attempt involved moving around $27 million worth of crypto but it is not known how much of this amount was seized.
Continued Coordination
In order to prevent any further flow of illicit funds, exchanges such as Binance and Huobi collaborated with Elliptic initially freezing 121 BTC worth approximately $2.5 million at the time. This collaboration has continued and on the 14th February 2021 another $1.4 million worth of cryptocurrency was frozen from accounts believed to be owned by the Lazarus Group.
Blender Crypto Mixer
The collaboration between these exchanges came despite Blender – a sanctioned crypto mixer – being brought back as “Sinbad” in an effort by hackers to launder their illegally acquired funds even more efficiently than before..
Exchange Efforts
Exchanges are doing all that they can in order to stop any further illegal activities involving stolen funds form being conducted through their platforms; however there is still a risk that untraceable money could be moved if users employ more sophisticated methods for laundering their ill-gotten profits..
Conclusion
Although security researchers have done well in tracking down many of these transactions before they can be successfully cashed out, no one can guarantee that every single one will be caught as criminals continue to strive for better ways to cover up their tracks when dealing with stolen cryptos.