North Korean Hacking: 1.6 Trillion Won in Virtual Assets Stolen in the First Half of the Year

In the first half of this year, $1.1 billion, approximately 1.6 trillion won, was stolen from the global virtual asset market due to hacking, with more than half of this amount believed to be linked to attacks associated with North Korea. According to a report by blockchain security firm Blockade, there were 212 incidents of virtual asset exploits in the first half of the year, exceeding three times the annual occurrence from last year. The largest incident involved the sub-organization TraderTraitor of the North Korean hacking group Lazarus, which stole $292 million, about 426.4 billion won, from the DeFi platform KelfDAO, and also caused a loss of $285 million, approximately 416.1 billion won, on the Drift platform. Hacking methods have shifted from targeting past smart contract vulnerabilities to exploiting weak links in operating systems, such as private keys and electronic signatures, with 74% of the losses in the first half of the year resulting from attacks on operating systems. The industry points out the need to expand security measures, emphasizing that institutions handling digital assets must protect the entire process from asset storage systems to transaction approval.