The hackers accused of carrying out the largest cryptocurrency theft on record may have had AI-powered assistance.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s according to a\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0Monday (Nov. 2) from Bloomberg News, which says these hackers are part of a state-sponsored group from North Korea trained from an early age to target \u201cbig game,\u201d or high-value crypto companies.<\/p>\n Experts tell Bloomberg that the group, which the FBI has accused of the\u00a0$6.3 billion hack<\/a>\u00a0last week on\u00a0Binance<\/a>, is known as \u201cTraderTraitor\u201d and may only have around a dozen members.<\/p>\n Instead of going after individual investors, the group uses a strategy known as Big Game Hunting, employing\u00a0artificial intelligence<\/a>\u00a0(AI) to find their targets.<\/p>\n \u201cThis particular group looks for a big haul,\u201d said\u00a0Park Seong-su<\/a>, staff threat researcher at the cybersecurity company\u00a0Zscaler<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThey target crypto-related businesses, gain an understanding of their infrastructure and then tamper with it \u2014 or fund transfer processes \u2014 to execute a large-scale theft.\u201d<\/p>\n With new advances in AI \u201cthe barriers to such skills have dropped significantly, while the speed at which these operations can be carried out has increased tremendously,\u201d Park added.<\/p>\n Nick Carlsen, senior investigator for TRM Labs, told Bloomberg that new techniques being used by TraderTraitor indicate the group has turned to AI for its recent hacks. The group is also breaking new records in terms of revenue, Bloomberg noted, as its previous largest hack was the\u00a0theft of $1.5 billion<\/a>\u00a0from the Bybit exchange last year.<\/p>\n Meanwhile,\u00a0Elliptic<\/a>\u00a0Chief Scientist and Co-Founder\u00a0Dr. Tom Robinson<\/a>\u00a0offered some insights Monday into how the hackers were laundering their proceeds.<\/p>\n \u201cThe\u00a0laundering\u00a0is highly complex and clearly automated,\u201d he wrote in an analysis<\/a> shared with PYMNTS. \u201cIn under four days it has used about 12,000 wallets across 11 blockchains, roughly one new wallet every 25 seconds, and more than 40,000 transactions.\u201d<\/p>\n Robinson said most of the funds are still likely being held by North Korea, with those being laundered potentially already with Chinese money laundering networks, which North Korea has used in the past.<\/p>\n PYMNTS spoke with experts last week about the fallout from the hack, including\u00a0Chris Dimitriadis<\/a>, chief global strategy officer at\u00a0ISACA<\/a>. He said the financial exposure created by the hack demands board oversight.<\/p>\n