A brand new TRM Labs report says North Korea-linked hackers stole $643 million in the primary half of the 12 months, accounting for about two-thirds of global cryptocurrency losses.
North Korea-linked hacking teams have been chargeable for about two-thirds of the worth of cryptocurrency stolen worldwide in the primary half of this 12 months, in accordance with a report by blockchain analytics agency TRM Labs printed on Wednesday.
The report revealed that North Korea-linked hacking teams stole a complete of $643 million in cryptocurrency in the course of the first six months of the 12 months, in accordance with the report.
The determine accounted for 66.2 % of the $972 million in cryptocurrency stolen globally over the identical interval.
TRM Labs attributed two main assaults to North Korea-linked hackers: a $285 million breach of decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Drift in April and a $292 million hack of one other DeFi platform, KelpDAO.
Mixed, the 2 assaults resulted in $577 million in stolen cryptocurrency.
The quantity stolen by North Korea-linked hackers in the primary half of the 12 months was down from about $1.7 billion throughout the identical interval final 12 months, in accordance with the report.
“North Korea’s exercise has not slowed,” the report stated. “The distinction is that the remainder of the ecosystem skilled fewer large-scale thefts than in 2025.”
The report additionally emphasised that these figures embody “solely hacks and exploits.”
North Korea continues to generate cryptocurrency by way of different illicit exercise, together with “phishing campaigns, social engineering, fraud, scams and covert IT employee operations,” the report stated.
Because of this, the reported $643 million probably represents solely a portion of North Korea’s whole cryptocurrency-related income.
In the meantime, South Korea, the USA and Japan held the fifth Trilateral Diplomatic Working Group assembly on North Korea’s Cyber Threats in Washington on June 25 and 26.
A U.S. State Division spokesperson instructed Voice Of America in an article printed on Friday that North Korea has more and more turned to cybercrime to evade worldwide sanctions and finance its illicit weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile packages, including that cryptocurrency theft and cash laundering have develop into a major half of that technique.
BY JUNG SI-NAE [lee.jiwon10@joongang.co.kr]
