Atomic Wallet cryptocurrency wallet hacking damage exceeds $100 million
Garantex has blocked some of the stolen funds, but Western analytical services refuse to cooperate with the Russian-oriented cryptocurrency exchange due to US sanctions
Damage from the Atomic Wallet cryptocurrency wallet hack exceeded $100 million, cybersecurity company Elliptic said. The company is tracking more than 5,500 cryptocurrency wallets believed to have been affected in the attack.
Popular digital asset storage service Atomic Wallet was hacked in early June. Earlier it was reported that hackers stole about $35 million worth of user funds in various cryptocurrencies. According to the official website, the service has more than 5 million users.
On June 3, Atomic Wallet confirmed the wallet hack and reported that "less than 1%" of users were affected. Since then there has been no explanation from the project team about the main reason for the losses.
Elliptic believes the incident is linked to the Lazarus Group, a North Korean hacker group because the stolen assets were conducted through the Sinbad.io mixing service. The platform has been noted by analysts as being frequently used by hackers from the DPRK.
Elliptic says it cooperates with law enforcement agencies and exchanges around the world, which helped freeze more than $1 million worth of stolen assets. At the same time, the service reports that hackers began laundering funds through the Garantex exchange, with which Elliptic is not cooperating due to sanctions imposed by U.S. authorities against the cryptocurrency exchange in 2022.
Garantex confirmed that some of the funds stolen from Atomic Wallet had been transferred to the platform and said that all of the accounts involved in the situation under discussion have been verified and blocked.
"So far, we have managed to block some of these funds, and we are waiting for a request from law enforcement to return them to their rightful owners,"
However, Garantex notes that Western analytical services directly refuse or ignore offers of cooperation from Russian companies.
In particular, Elliptic states that they collected "exhaustive and unique information about cryptocurrencies used by Garantex, which allows clients of the service to avoid transactions with this entity under sanctions".
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