North Korean hackers turn to Russia to launder crypto
Blockchain analysts warn of growing cooperation between Russia-based crypto exchanges and North Korea-linked hacking groups. Democratic People’s Republic of Korea hacker groups have been actively using Russia-based exchanges to launder crypto since 2021, as strict international monitoring of North Korea’s on-chain crimes limits the country’s possibilities of an enrichment capability. According to Chainalysis, a blockchain forensics firm, North Korean hacker groups are now “increasing their use of Russia-based exchanges” to launder crypto stolen from centralized exchanges or decentralized finance protocols. You might also like: North Korea linked to latest crypto hacks, surpassing $270m In a blog post on Sept. 14, the New York-based firm wrote that almost $22 million in crypto stolen from Harmony Protocol — a blockchain protocol exploited for roughly 100 million in crypto in Jun. 2022 — was recently transferred to a Russia-based exchange “...