The DeBridge team thwarts possible cyber attack by the Lazarus group
Important takeaways
- DeBridge Finance fended off a cyber attack yesterday, according to co-founder Alex Smirnov.
- The method suggests that the entity behind the attempted attack may be the North Korean hacker syndicate Lazarus Group.
- Lazarus Group is the crime organization responsible for Axie Infinity’s $550 million Ronin bridge hack.
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The North Korean hacking syndicate Lazarus Group is believed to be behind a failed cyber attack on deBridge Finance yesterday.
Close call
A suspected hacking attempt by North Korean cybercriminals has been foiled.
DeBridge Finance co-founder Alex Smirnov posted on Twitter today that the protocol’s team had been the subject of an attempted cyber attack that may have been developed by the North Korean hacking syndicate Lazarus Group.
According to Smirnov, several members of the deBridge team received emails yesterday with PDFs attached to them titled “New Salary Adjustments.” Downloading the file and submitting password information would have triggered a data collection virus on affected computers, and the virus would have then transmitted the collected data to an “attacker command center.”
Smirnov claims The PDF titles, “New Salary Adjustments,” were used by Lazarus Group hackers in previous cyberattacks; he further warned all teams in Web3 to be on the lookout for similar attacks, believing the campaign to be “widespread”. The deBridge protocol itself had not been affected by the attempted cyber attack, Smirnov assured.
The Lazarus Group gained notoriety in the crypto space in March for utilizes Axie Infinity’s $550 million Ronin bridge, the biggest hack in crypto history. According to DeFiance Capital founder Arthur Cheong, Lazarus Group is just one of several state-backed North Korean hacking syndicates currently targeting the crypto room; Cheong believes “all prominent organizations” in the industry are at risk. Cyber security firm Kaspersky has echoed Cheong’s warnings, claim that another group called BlueNoroff is targeting crypto startups.
North Korean hacking groups have also used cryptocurrencies in ransom attacks against other sectors of the economy. Last month, the US Department of Justice recovered $500,000 from North Korean hackers who had forced two US hospitals to send Bitcoin ransoms to regain access to their servers.
Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this piece held ETH and several other cryptocurrencies.
