How Much Crypto Was Stolen by North Korea in 2023?

Last year, $ 700 million in cryptocurrency was stolen by North Korean hackers.

Late reports for last year are now saying that the total has risen by a further $80 million over the final days of 2023, to over $700 million —which incredibly would account for approximately a third of the industry’s losses to hackers in the calendar year.

New Year’s Eve Attack on Orbit Chain

The final theft of the year saw a $80 million hack over the final days of 2023 that took place at Orbit Chain when their security was breached on January 31st. It was not until the day after (New Year’s Day) that it was reported by the blockchain.

Five wallet-identified addresses stole Ethereum (ETH) and DAI (a stablecoin of the Ethereum Blockchain) during the fraud.

Orbit Chain itself is a South Korean decentralized cross-chain project founded in 2018. They are currently working with Law Enforcement to locate the stolen funds and freeze them.

Always Be Careful – Scammers Never Sleep

Orbit Chain has warned users that any reimbursement claims they receive are scams and users have been reminded to keep checking their site for official updates. This illustrates how scammers never miss an opportunity to try to penetrate. Scamming on top of a scam shows their hubris and temerity, as those bad-faith actors never sleep and are always looking for new victims.

In 2022, North Korean hackers stole $850 Million

Amazingly, the amount of crypto stolen by North Korean hackers in 2023 fell by 30% and that sort of reduction could be regarded as progress. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) hacks were calculated to be ten times more damaging to the industry than others not linked to the North Korean community, primarily because they are so hard to track down by the authorities.

How Do the North Korean Hackers Attack the Industry?

Since 2017, nearly $3 billion has been stolen by North Korean hackers, and on most of those occasions, it has been found that the lion’s share of the nefarious behavior has been around digital wallets. To attack them they have compromised seed phrases and the private keys of users.

Once the digital wallet has been breached, the victim’s assets then come under the control of the North Korean operatives. In general, at this juncture, they are swapped for USDT or Tron, followed by swift conversion to a normal currency using the bigger OTC brokers.

Why Are the North Korean Hackers Never Brought to Justice?

The DPRK’s illegal activity is so hard to track down as their methods are constantly evolving and staying ahead of the game and law-enforcement. As soon as their original platforms —Chip Mixer and Tornado Cash— were sanctioned, they swiftly moved on to pastures new utilizing BTC Sinbad, which itself was then sanctioned in November 2023 by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Sadly, the January 31st reports about the Orbit Chain hack show that those slick money-laundering operations have once again resumed their criminal activities.

How to Protect Yourself From North Korean Hackers?

If you want to know how to protect yourself against hackers and criminal activity, we have investigated the best ways to guard against hackers in past articles, so our readers’ crypto can stay protected while, for example, playing at the main crypto gambling sites.

Conclusion

We identified how much crypto was stolen by hackers in 2023 and found despite it being a significantly high amount of approximately $700 Million, it had in fact decreased by 30% from the figure in 2022. The overall figure of North Korean hacks in the last seven years of the cryptocurrency age is circa $3 billion and the fight persists after a debilitating attack at Orbit Chain on New Year’s Day.

For readers and followers here at Bookmakers Review we are constantly reporting on these issues and advising what you can do to safeguard your own personal crypto investments.