Alongside the rising adoption and value of crypto assets, theft is also on the rise. This year, the total value of cryptocurrency stolen surged 21%, reaching a substantial $2.2 billion. And according to a Chainalysis report released on Thursday, more than half of this amount was stolen by North Korea-affiliated hacking groups.
Earlier this year, the United Nations Security Council said that North Korean hackers stole $3 billion in cryptocurrency assets between 2017 and 2023. In 2024, hackers linked to North Korea accounted for 61% of the total amount stolen — worth $1.34 billion, in 47 cases, per the report by Chainalysis.
Geopolitics in the picture
The report highlighted that most crypto hacks occurred between January and July this year, but the amount stolen had already exceeded $1.58 billion, around 84.4% higher than the same period in 2023.
Following July, however, hacking events became significantly infrequent, potentially due to geopolitics. Chainalysis attributes it to North Korea’s alliance with Russia, which emerged after a meeting between Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, and Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, in June.
The amount of crypto assets stolen by North Korea-linked hackers dropped by 53.73% after the June summit, per Chainalysis. North Korea, which has increased its cooperation with Russia, might have switched up its cybercrime tactics, the report says.
Victims need stronger security
Crypto hacking continues to pose a constant threat, with over a billion dollars’ worth of crypto being hacked in four separate years within the past decade — 2018 ($1.5 billion), 2021 ($3.3 billion), 2022 ($3.7 billion), and 2023 ($1.8 billion).
Decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms that don’t implement proper security practices have been the primary targets of cryptocurrency hacks in the last three years, and accounted for the highest amount of stolen assets in Q1 2024. However, between Q2 and Q3 2024, centralized services were the main target of attacks.
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A few notable cases of centralized services that were attacked in 2024 include DMM Bitcoin, a Japanese crypto exchange that lost $305 million (48 billion yen) in bitcoin, and WazirX, an Indian crypto exchange, which halted withdrawals in July after a security breach by North Korea-linked hackers.
