North Korea’s Lazarus Group allegedly targets deBridge

DeBridge cofounder Alex Smirnov on Saturday alleged their team found evidence that North Korean state-backed Lazarus Group was attempting to attack the cross-chain protocol, warning that the group’s attack could broadly target Web3 teams.

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Fast facts

• In a message thread on Twitter, Smirnov said a phishing email named “New Salary Adjustments” had characteristics similar to attacks previously attributed to North Korea’s Lazarus Group.

• North Korea’s Lazarus Group was allegedly behind the recent Axie Infinity hack, with some US$600 million in cryptocurrency stolen on the cross-chain bridge Ronin.

• Cross-chain protocol deBridge provides cryptocurrency and NFT exchanges between several major blockchains, including Ethereum, Avalanche, Polygon, BNB Chain, HECO, and ARBITRUM.

• According to a Chainalysis report in August, about US$2 billion was stolen from cross-chain bridge hacks this year.

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