North Korea-supported threat actors have hacked more crypto platforms in 2023, but stole less of the digital currency in total than in 2022.
Crypto research agency Chainalysis has shown that in 2023, North Korean opponents stolen just over $ 1.0 billion compared to around $ 1.7 billion in 2022.
The Spike from 2022, which established a record of stolen cryptocurrencies of North Korean endangered threat actors, was mainly due to a productive robbery of decentralized financial products (Defi). That year, North Korean hackers have stolen around $ 1.19 billion in Defi assets, which represents 70% of all crypto winsts.
Worldwide drop in Defi Hacking
In 2023 the Global Defi Boon took off and North Korean hackers won considerably less when focusing Defi protocols.
Chainalysis researchers explained that the reason for this new trend is probably two -fold. Firstly, Defi protocol developers and supervisors have improved their Operation Security (OPSEC).
“When investigating this trend last year, security experts told us that they believe that many Defi vulnerabilities resulted from protocol operators that focus primarily on growth, and not enough on implementing and maintaining robust security systems,” is the chainalysis report.
The second reason is that the value falls in Defi activa in 2023, which influenced the profit of Defi -Hacking worldwide.
The global value that was lost in Defi-Hacks fell by 63.7% on an annual basis in 2023, and the median loss per defi-hack fell by 7.4%. And while the number of individual crypto -hacks rose in 2023, the number of Defi -Hacks fell by 17.2%.
This trend is mirrored in investigating Defi -Hacks from North Korean groups, which stolen $ 428.8 million from Defi platforms in 2023, from $ 1.19 billion in 2022.
Read more: Illegal cryptocurrency flows fall 39% in 2023
North -Korean hackers diversified their crypto goals
To compensate for this loss of income, diversified North Korean hackers their attacks in 2023, whereby centralized crypto platforms and crypto portfolios (eg Atomic Wallet, Alphapo and Moinspaid) are added to their victim portfolio.