Bybit Hack: North Korean Lazarus Group Blamed as Crypto Exchange Reels from $1.5B Hack

Bybit, a popular crypto exchange, is reeling from the massive hack worth $1.5 billion in digital assets. According to reports, the hackers targeted the crypto exchange's cold wallet

Crypto exchange Bybit suffered a massive hack on Friday, with hackers stealing digital assets worth $1.5 billion, according to on-chain data and industry reports.

The hackers targeted the exchange’s cold wallet, an offline storage system, to pilfer the exchange’s assets, primarily Ether (ETH). On-chain data showed that the stolen funds were swiftly transferred into different wallets and liquidated on several platforms.

Bybit detected the unauthorized activity involving one of its ETH cold wallets on Friday. The incident occurred when the exchange’s ETH multisig cold wallet executed a transfer to its warm wallet, but the transaction was manipulated through a sophisticated attack that masked the signing…

— Bybit (@Bybit_Official) February 21, 2025

Authorities are reportedly linking the breach to the Lazarus Group, a state-backed hacking team in North America. Companies like Arkham Intelligence and Elliptic, which help track stolen crypto funds, said the stolen digital assets were quickly transferred to different accounts and liquidated within minutes.

Elliptic said the hacking is by far the biggest in the industry, easily surpassing the stolen $570 million from Binance in 2022 and the $611 million worth of crypto assets drained from Poly Network in 2021.

ByBit CEO says the platform is experiencing “massive withdrawals.” https://t.co/Xi5vhqMqWI

— FORTUNE (@FortuneMagazine) February 21, 2025

According to Elliptic, the Lazarus Group is known for its crypto-hacking activities, having stolen billions of dollars from different sites. The group is also accused of perpetrating the 2014 Sony Pictures hack and the 2017 WannaCry ransomware attack.

Meanwhile, Bybit’s CEO, Ben Zhou, stated that the platform is experiencing “massive withdrawals” in the wake of the hack. However, he assured users that the site’s other cold wallets are secure and withdrawals are processed “normally”.

According to Arkham, as Bybit struggled to service the surge of withdrawals, it received help from other popular exchanges to cover the requests.

The exchange received more than 88,000 Ether or roughly $239 million from Binance and Bitget addresses, and the fund infusion can boost the exchange’s current liquidity as it addresses the massive withdrawal requests.

According to on-chain data, Bitget transferred 40,000 Ether, or $106 million, to a Bybit cold wallet on February 21st at 19:44 (UTC).

Lookonchain argued that Bitget transferred its funds to the exchange to boost its liquidity and serve as a vote of confidence. After 10 minutes, a Binance hot wallet transferred 11,800 Ether or $31 million to the same Bybit cold wallet address. In total, Binance transferred 47,800 Ether or $127.48 million.

Bybit’s CEO, Ben Zhou, has assured its users and customers that the exchange is solvent. In a Twitter/X post, the CEO explained that the customers’ crypto funds are backed 1:1 and that the company can service the losses even if it fails to recover them.

Featured image from Adobe Stock, chart from TradingView