Hackers Steal $1.5 Billion from Bybit in Largest Crypto Heist Ever
Bybit, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, has fallen victim to a massive hack, with thieves stealing an estimated $1.5 billion in digital assets. This breach is now considered the biggest crypto heist in history.
The attack targeted Bybit's cold wallet, a secure offline storage system meant to protect digital assets. The stolen funds, mostly in ether, were quickly moved through multiple wallets and liquidated across various platforms.
Bybit’s CEO, Ben Zhou, reassured users on social media, saying, "Please rest assured that all other cold wallets are secure. All withdrawals are NORMAL."
Blockchain analysis firms, including Elliptic and Arkham Intelligence, tracked the stolen cryptocurrency as it moved between different accounts. This hack exceeds previous record thefts in the crypto space, surpassing the $611 million stolen from Poly Network in 2021 and the $570 million worth of Binance’s BNB token stolen in 2022, according to Elliptic.
Investigators later linked the attack to North Korea's Lazarus Group, a notorious state-sponsored hacking group known for stealing billions of dollars from cryptocurrency platforms. The group is believed to exploit vulnerabilities in exchange systems to fund North Korea’s regime, often using complex laundering methods to cover the trail.
Tom Robinson, chief scientist at Elliptic, stated, "We’ve labelled the thief’s addresses in our software, to help prevent these funds from being cashed-out through any other exchanges."
Following the breach, Bybit saw a surge in withdrawal requests as users feared the platform's solvency. Zhou later announced that the outflow had stabilized and that the company secured a bridge loan from undisclosed partners to cover any unrecoverable losses and ensure ongoing operations.
The Lazarus Group has been a major threat to the cryptocurrency industry since 2017, when they stole $200 million worth of bitcoin from four South Korean exchanges. As law enforcement and crypto tracking firms continue their efforts to trace the stolen funds, experts warn that large-scale thefts remain a serious threat to the sector.
"The more difficult we make it to benefit from crimes such as this, the less frequently they will take place," Robinson wrote in a post.
