Hackers steal $1.5 billion from Exchange Bibit, the biggest Crypto Heist

The leading cryptocurrency exchange, BYBIT has been hacked into a $1.5 billion tuning with digital assets estimated to be the biggest crypto robbery in history.

The attack compromised a cold wallet from Bybit, an offline storage system designed for security. Stolen funds, mainly etherwas quickly transferred to multiple wallets and was settled through various platforms.

“Don’t worry, all other cold wallets are safe,” Bybit CEO Ben Zhou wrote to X. “All drawers are normal.”

Blockchain analytics companies, including Elliptic and Arkham Intelligence, moved to various accounts and quickly tracked offloaded stolen cryptography. According to Elliptic, the hacks far outweigh previous thefts in the sector. This includes $6111 million stolen from Poly Network in 2021 and $570 million stolen from Binance in 2022.

Elliptic analysts later tied the attack to North Korea’s Lazarus Group. It’s a hacking collective sponsored by a country that’s notoriously for sucking up billions of dollars from the cryptocurrency industry. The group is known for exploiting security vulnerabilities to fund North Korean regimes, and often uses sophisticated washing methods to blur funding flows. It’s there.

“We’ve been working hard to get the most out of our business,” said Tom Robinson, chief scientist at Elliptic.

The violation quickly caused a rush of withdrawal from Bibit, as users feared potential bankruptcy. Zhou said the outflow was stable. To reassure customers, he announced that Bybit has secured bridge loans from undisclosed partners, covering irreparable losses and maintaining operations.

The history of targeting the Lazarus Group’s crypto platform dates back to 2017, when the group infiltrated four Korean exchanges and stole $200 million worth of Bitcoin. As law enforcement and crypto tracing companies work to track stolen assets, industry experts warn that massive theft continues to be a fundamental risk.

“The more difficult it is to profit from crimes like these, the less often they occur,” wrote Elliptic’s Robinson in a post.

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