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Last week , hackers stole around $ 1.4 billion in Ethereum cryptocurrency from crypto exchange Bybit , believe to be the largest crypto rip-off in history . Now the company is offering a total of $ 140 million in bounties for anyone who can help trace and freeze out the stolen funds .
Bybit ’s chief operating officer and co - founder Ben Zhouannounced the bountyin a post on X on Tuesday .
On the official site of the bounty , Bybit explicate that for every time someone traces and freezes some of the stolen funds , 5 % of that amount proceed to the person who found them and 5 % goes to the “ entity ” that froze state funds .
At the time of penning , thanks to five bounty hunters , Bybit has already awarded $ 4.23 million in bounties , agree to the land site , whose logotype is a knife appearing to be prod through the capitulum of North Korean leader Kim Jong - un .
“ We will not stop until Lazarus or risky actors in the industry is eliminated . In the future we will open it up to other victims of Lazarus as well , ” Zhou wrote , referring toLazarus Group , the name that the cybersecurity diligence has allot to a broad mathematical group of North Korean - backed hackers focalise largely on cryptocurrency thefts .
Multiple security system researchers and crypto security system and monitoring firmsbelieve the hackers behind the massive Bybit armed robbery work for the North Korean government , which over the years has become very effective at targeting crypto exchanges and web3 companies , stealing $ 650 million in crypto in 2024 alone , concord to the authorities of the United States , Japan , and South Korea .
On Wednesday , Bybit ’s Zhoupublished the preliminary resultsof the forensic investigation into the hack , lead by two company , Sygnia Labs and Verichains . Sygnia concluded that the “ root cause ” of the attack was malicious codification coming from the infrastructure ofSafeWallet , a crypto wallet program . Verichains said a benign JavaScript file was supplant with a malicious reading “ specifically targeting Ethereum Multisig Cold Wallet of Bybit . ”
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The two investigate security companies concluded that hackers breached a developer ’s equipment at SafeWallet , asthe company itself confirm .
