Do Son Reuters reported on Tuesday that South Korea’s National Intelligence Agency told lawmakers that the $530 million digital currency stolen by Japan’s digital currency exchange Coincheck last month was probably attributable to North Korean hackers. Coincheck, one of Japan’s largest digital money exchanges, said last month that 58 billion yen (about 530 million U.S. dollars) in digital money was stolen and that it would return 46.3 billion yen to the loser investors. This theft is the largest cryptocurrency stolen incident to date and cyber attackers are still not sure.
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Reuters reported yesterday that it was mentioned that another person said that North Korea’s steal of digital currency “it’s possible, but not a probable scenario backed by evidence.”
In the digital money space, the media has repeatedly suspected North Korean hackers are crazy “fishing gold.” In December last year, the Wall Street Journal quoted insiders as saying that South Korea is investigating whether the bankruptcy of Youbit, its digital currency trading platform, may be related to North Korea. Reuters also cited sources earlier that North Korea attacked several Korean digital currency platforms and stole digital currencies worth about 82 million U.S. dollars.
Even the ransomware “WannaCry” ravaged by the world was also suspected of being a North Korean hacker. US homeland security advisers also said in a column in the Wall Street Journal in December that North Korea has a direct responsibility for the virus.
However, North Korean hackers attacked Japan’s cryptocurrency for the first time in public reports.
In a report, Forbes quoted experts as saying that the anonymity of cryptocurrencies, the relative ease of regulation, the ability to convert into hard currency and other advantages make it possible for North Korea to find a way to circumvent regulation while gaining access to overseas currencies and entering the global market Shortcut.
The Times also quoted a researcher as saying that North Korea was looking for ways to get hard currency, stealing bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.
The loyal fans of cryptocurrency believe that cryptocurrencies are safer than traditional currencies. However, the theft of cryptocurrencies is also one of the catalysts for its continued plunge of 70% since its peak in December last year.
On Tuesday, CFTC and SEC chairmen stepped up the monitoring of cryptocurrencies but encouraged the blockchain technology to generally revive digital currencies. In the past 24 hours, bitcoin rose nearly 15%, some quotations platform once exceeded 8,000 US dollars.
Source: Reuters
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