Hackers pulled off the biggest crypto heist in history, snatching a staggering $1.46 billion worth of Ethereum from Bybit’s cold wallet. The February 21, 2025 attack sent shockwaves through the crypto world, with CEO Ben Zhou scrambling to address the situation in a hastily arranged livestream just an hour after the incident. Talk about a rough day at the office.
The culprit? All signs point to the Lazarus Group, North Korea‘s notorious cyber-bandits. These guys have been busy – they’d already nabbed $1.34 billion in 2024 alone through 47 different hacks. Now they’ve outdone themselves. Researchers at Elliptic and Arkham confirmed the group’s involvement through blockchain analysis.
North Korea’s Lazarus Group strikes again, fresh off their $1.34B crypto-stealing spree in 2024. These digital bandits just can’t help themselves.
The group manipulated Bybit’s signing interface, somehow gaining control of what was supposed to be an ultra-secure cold wallet. So much for “cold storage” being unhackable. Experts recommend using hardware wallets from reputable manufacturers to prevent such breaches of offline storage systems.
Over 500,000 ETH is now playing a high-stakes game of digital hide-and-seek across multiple wallets. Blockchain security firms are watching the funds bounce around like a game of crypto ping-pong, but catching these guys isn’t exactly easy. They’re pretty good at making dirty money look clean.
The market didn’t take the news well. Ethereum dropped 4% faster than a hot potato, though it partially recovered when Bybit secured a bridge loan covering 80% of the stolen funds. The exchange insists it’s still solvent. Founded in 2018, Bybit quickly became known for its robust trading platform. Phew.
The hack exposed some uncomfortable truths about crypto security. Those supposedly bulletproof multisig setups? Not so bulletproof after all. The industry’s big players are now sweating bullets, wondering if their cold wallets are really as secure as they thought.
Recovery efforts are in full swing, with Bybit teaming up with cybersecurity firms and law enforcement. They’ve promised to make things right for affected users, but let’s be real – tracking down stolen crypto is like finding a digital needle in a blockchain haystack.
History shows these funds often vanish into the crypto ether, never to be seen again.
