Binance, Huobi team up to recover $2.5M from Harmony One hackers

Security teams at crypto exchanges Binance and Huobi interacted to freeze and recuperate 121 Bitcoin (BTC) from hackers behind the Harmony bridge exploit.

In a tweet, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao announced that the hackers have actually tried to launder their funds through the Huobi exchange. After Binance found this, they contacted and helped Huobi in freezing and recovering the digital possessions transferred by the hackers.

We identified Harmony One hacker fund movement. They formerly tried to launder through Binance and we froze his accounts. This time he used Huobi. We assisted Huobi group to freeze his accounts. Together, 124 BTC have been recuperated. CeFi helping to keep DeFi #SAFU!

.?.!!– CZ Binance (@cz_binance) January 16, 2023

According to Zhao, the exchanges recuperated a total of 121 BTC, approximated to be worth

around $2.5 million at the time of writing. Before Binance and Huobi found and froze the funds, on-chain crypto investigator, ZachXBT, highlighted that the hackers behind the exploit were moving 41,000 Ether(ETH), worth around$64 million, over the weekend.1/2 North Korea’s Lazarus Group had a really hectic weekend moving$63.5 m(~ 41000 ETH)from the Harmony bridge hack through Railgun before consolidating funds and depositing on 3 different exchanges. pic.twitter.com/huDumaJeSh!.?.!— ZachXBT(@zachxbt )January 15, 2023 According to the crypto sleuth, the hackers combined and transferred the digital assets on 3

different crypto exchanges after moving the funds. However, the on-chain investigator did not specify the names of the exchanges utilized by the exploiters. Related: Backlash as Harmony proposes minting 4.97 B tokens to compensate victims On June 24, 2022, the Harmony

team spotted the exploit and reported $100 million in funds compromised. The hack highlighted concerns previously raised by neighborhood members around some of the mutisig wallets securing the Horizon bridge. On June 30, the Lazarus Group– an infamous North Korean hacking

organization– was determined as a suspect behind the$100 million Harmony hack. Blockchain analysis firm Elliptic kept in mind that the way in which the hack was conducted resembled other Lazarus Group attacks. The Horizon bridge hack is one of the biggest exploits and hacks in 2022. Analysts think that the Lazarus Grouptargeted the worker login qualifications to breach Harmony’s security system.

The hackers then released laundering programs to move the taken possessions.