Elliptic analysis reveals over $100M stolen from Atomic Wallet Elliptic analysis reveals over $100M stolen from Atomic Wallet
Elliptic said North Korea Lazarus Group has changed its tactics of laundering the stolen Atomic Wallet funds.
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Updated: Jun. 13, 2023 at 6:39 pm UTC
Cover art/illustration via CryptoSlate. Image includes combined content which may include AI-generated content.
Blockchain analysis firm Elliptic reported on June 13 that its analysis of over 5,500 wallets belonging to Atomic Wallet users’ showed that their losses have risen to more than $100 million.
Elliptic also linked the Atomic Wallet hack to North Korea’s Lazarus Group—a notorious hacker group that has stolen over $2 billion in crypto. According to the blockchain analytical firm, the way the stolen assets are being laundered matches the styles employed by the hackers in the past.
Over $1M of stolen funds frozen
In its June 13 report, Elliptic stated it has worked with several investigators and exchanges worldwide to trace and freeze more than $1 million of the stolen funds.
The blockchain analytics firm continued that the asset freeze has compelled the hackers to modify their approach. The hackers now use Garantex, a sanctioned crypto exchange in Russia, to launder the funds.
On June 3, Atomic Wallet confirmed reports that its users’ wallets were compromised. A June 5 update from the firm stated that the incidence impacted less than 1% of its monthly active users.
Since then, the self-proclaimed decentralized wallet has been notably silent on the incident, leaving users frustrated by the absence of updates and information.
As of press time, Atomic Wallet was yet to respond to CryptoSlate’s request for comment.
$40k burn?
Earlier today, Coinbase director Conor Grogan tweeted that the Atomic Wallet exploiter burnt over $40,000 in Ethereum in three transactions.
Grogan stated that the North Group “created a series of bugged contracts and deposited $40k in them for some reason.” He added that the contracts are “are 0x/null contracts so nobody can ever withdraw from them.”
It is unclear why the hackers created these contracts as of press time.
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Posted In: Hacks
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Oluwapelumi Adejumo
Oluwapelumi values Bitcoin's potential. He imparts insights on a range of topics like DeFi, hacks, mining and culture, underlining transformative power.
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