Final week, hackers stole round $1.4 billion in Ethereum cryptocurrency from crypto alternate Bybit, believed to be the most important crypto heist in historical past. Now the corporate is providing a complete of $140 million in bounties for anybody who may help hint and freeze the stolen funds.
Bybit’s CEO and co-founder Ben Zhou introduced the bounty in a put up on X on Tuesday.
On the official website of the bounty, Bybit explains that for each time somebody traces and freezes a few of the stolen funds, 5% of that quantity goes to the one who discovered them and 5% goes to the “entity” that froze stated funds.
On the time of writing, thanks to 5 bounty hunters, Bybit has already awarded $4.23 million in bounties, based on the location, whose emblem is a knife showing to be stabbing by way of the top of North Korean chief Kim Jong-un.
Contact Us
Do you might have extra details about the Bybit hack, or different crypto heists? From a non-work machine and community, you possibly can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Sign at +1 917 257 1382, or through Telegram and Keybase @lorenzofb, or electronic mail. You can also contact information.killnetswitch through SecureDrop.
“We is not going to cease till Lazarus or unhealthy actors within the trade is eradicated. Sooner or later we are going to open it as much as different victims of Lazarus as properly,” Zhou wrote, referring to Lazarus Group, the identify that the cybersecurity trade has assigned to a broad group of North Korean-backed hackers targeted largely on cryptocurrency thefts.
A number of security researchers and crypto security and monitoring corporations consider the hackers behind the large Bybit heist work for the North Korean authorities, which through the years has develop into very efficient at focusing on crypto exchanges and web3 firms, stealing $650 million in crypto in 2024 alone, based on the governments of the US, Japan, and South Korea.
On Wednesday, Bybit’s Zhou printed the preliminary outcomes of the forensic investigation into the hack, led by two firms, Sygnia Labs and Verichains. Sygnia concluded that the “root trigger” of the assault was malicious code coming from the infrastructure of SafeWallet, a crypto pockets platform. Verichains stated a benign JavaScript file was changed with a malicious model “particularly focusing on Ethereum Multisig Chilly Pockets of Bybit.”
The 2 investigating security firms concluded that hackers breached a developer’s machine at SafeWallet, as the corporate itself confirmed.