North Korea's Lazarus Hackers Blamed in deBridge Finance Cyberattack

Company co-founder Alex Smirnov warns all Web3 teams that the campaign is likely widespread.

AccessTimeIconAug 5, 2022 at 6:27 p.m. UTC
Updated May 11, 2023 at 6:47 p.m. UTC

The victim of an email-based cyberattack, cross-chain protocol deBridge Finance says its investigation shows the action likely came from the North Korea-associated Lazarus Group.

The attack took the form of an email address spoofing that of deBridge co-founder Alex Smirnov. Though most employees reported the suspicious email, one downloaded and opened the associated file.

The company's probe of the hack shows a similar attack vector to those noticed in other cyberattacks by North Korea's Lazarus Group, said Smirnov in a lengthy Twitter thread.

"PSA for all teams in Web3," wrote Smirnov, "this campaign is likely widespread."

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Stephen  Alpher

Stephen Alpher is CoinDesk's managing editor for Markets. He holds BTC above CoinDesk’s disclosure threshold of $1,000.