- In 5 years, criminals stole $721 million from Japanese crypto-firms
- This is one-third of all stolen funds
- Hackers also frequently steal from other neighbors and the United States
North Korean hackers are most successful at attacking Japanese crypto-assets. Since 2017, they have stolen $721 million worth of coins from this country, reports Elliptic.
That’s 30% of the global figure for the same period. They use technology that tracks and identifies remittances on blockchain with geography.
According to analysts, North Korean hackers stole $2.3 billion worth of cryptocurrency from users in 5 years.
In addition to Japan ($721 million), the list of victims includes Vietnam ($540 million), the United States ($497 million) and Hong Kong ($281 million).
And North Korea is building nuclear missiles with the stolen “crypto.” Why Japan and Vietnam?
The volume of crypto-hacking is due to the fact that local operators provide weak security, according to experts. And yet the volume and popularity of the blockchain industry is growing here.
From 2018 to 2021, hackers hacked 3 crypto-exchanges in Japan. One of them, the Zaif platform, lost 7 billion yen ($51.4 million). That loss has forced the company to close.
Local businesses say Japan needs to increase coordination with other countries to intercept the thefts in time.
The way Ukraine, for example, is doing it – recently the Ministry of Finance started cooperating with the U.S. and other countries to block Russian crypto-purses.
The Ministry of Finance has recently started cooperating with the U.S. and other countries to block Russian crypto-purses.