Bybit CEO Ben Zhou reported that the exchange is offering a 5% bounty to any platform, crypto mixer, or individual who helps freeze stolen funds from last week’s $1.4 billion heist. This follows Bybit’s aggressive move against the Lazarus Group, a prolific North Korean hacking syndicate.
The initiative offers economic rewards to blockchain specialists and cybersecurity experts for tracking the stolen money so that it can’t be laundered on dark exchanges and decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms.
A New Approach to Cybercrime: Lazarus Bounty Platform
Bybit also introduced lazarusbounty, a new website through which bounty hunters can log in with a cryptocurrency wallet and take part in recovery. There is an active ranking system of good and bad players on the site, and even transparency when it comes to response time and cooperation levels.
“You do not want to find yourself on the bad actor list,” Zhou warned, assuming the list would fuel follow-up regulatory and compliance efforts against actors found to be facilitating sanctioned transactions.
Biggest Crypto Heist in History
Bybit lost the largest crypto heist in history, losing over 400,000 Ether (ETH) valued at nearly $1.5 billion. The hack resulted from a multi-signature transaction exploit, and blockchain researcher ZachXBT blamed the hack on Lazarus Group.
Lazarus’ Money Laundering Tactics and Ongoing Investigations
Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic reported that Lazarus has begun to launder the stolen funds by distributing funds across multiple wallets and utilizing cross-chain bridges to move assets between blockchains like Bitcoin and Tron.
The group also utilizes non-KYC exchanges like eXch in an effort to further launder transactions. While eXch denied involvement, ZachXBT’s report suggests otherwise due to suspicious activity on the exchange.
Bybit’s Recovery Efforts and Market Stability
Bybit quickly took various recovery measures, resorting to strategic loans and partnerships to cover losses. Withdrawal processing was back to normal, even after a brief surge following the attack.
Bybit has already recovered $43 million so far, with assistance from Mantle, the creators of mETH, and SEAL 911, a team of white-hat cybersecurity professionals. Tether assisted by freezing the stolen amount of $181,000 in USDT trades.
Bybit is still focused on pursuing the stolen money and putting in place stronger security to avoid the next attack.
