Photo credit: Fantastic Studio/Freepik

Bitcoin decentralized finance platform Alex Lab said there is “substantial” proof of transactions that links North Korea’s hacker group, Lazarus, to the $4 million exploit it faced in May.

On May 16, the Bitcoin layer-2 developer disclosed that they had identified an exploit using compromised private keys obtained via a phishing attack, which allowed the perpetrators to drain assets from the protocol. The exploiters ran off with approximately $4.3 million, according to blockchain security firm CertiK.

The hackers also exploited around $13.7 million in Stacks (STX) tokens.

“After extensive forensic analysis [...] there is substantial transaction evidence linking the attack to the Lazarus Group, a notorious hacker collective believed to be associated with the North Korean government,” Alex Lab said in a June 25 X post.

With contributing investigations by blockchain sleuth Zachxbt, “who provided critical assistance on transaction tracing,” the team identified two addresses — an initial exploit link and wallet connected to the notorious cybercrime group — that were “crucial” in tracing the flow of stolen assets.

Alex Lab is working with the Singapore Police Force and relevant cryptocurrency exchanges to track down and freeze the stolen funds. The company has stated that it is committed to returning the funds to affected users as soon as possible.

The Alex Lab token (ALEX) is down 64.3% in the past 30 days, currently exchanging hands at $0.07154, per CoinGecko data.

Recent crypto hacks

Besides Alex Lab, several other DeFi platforms suffered recent attacks. In June alone, lending protocol UwU Lend endured two security breaches, when the hacker stole $24 million.

UwU Lend has since offered a bounty of $5 million in Ether to whoever catches the perpetrator.

Overall, security service provider Immunefi has so far identified over $473 million worth of losses from crypto hacks and rug pulls across 108 incidents in 2024.

In May, hackers stole $52 million from crypto platforms, a 12% decrease compared to the same month in the previous year. DeFi platforms remain the most vulnerable to these attacks, the report said.

The figures show a decrease in hacking activity between 2022 and 2023, however. Last year, hackers stole over $2 billion worth of crypto, which is about half the amount lost in 2022. A significant portion of these losses were attributed to the Lazarus Group, which has been responsible for stealing $3 billion worth of assets over the past six years.

Read more: Mt. Gox to begin Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash repayments in July