Atomic Wallet hacker sends crypto to mixer used by Lazarus Group: Elliptic

Illicit proceeds from the $35 million Atomic Wallet breach have been transferred to a cryptocurrency mixer that is reportedly favored by North Korea’s most notorious cyber-hacking organization.

Elliptic’s Investigations Team has tracked down the funds stolen in the $35 million Atomic Wallet hack to the crypto mixer Sinbad.io, according to a June 5 announcement by the blockchain compliance analytics firm.

It asserts that the blending service had been utilized to clean more than $100 million in digital resources taken by North Korea’s Lazarus Group previously.

Elliptic did not disclose the amount transferred to the mixing service, but they did mention that the funds were exchanged for Bitcoin (BTC) before being mixed for obfuscation.

The company additionally stated that Sinbad.io is probably a new name for Blender.io, “a mixer that has been widely used to clean money belonging to the Lazarus Group,” and the first to be sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department.

On June 3, several Atomic Wallet user accounts were breached, resulting in losses of up to $35 million. Nevertheless, the company downplayed the incident, asserting that it only affected less than 1% of its monthly active users.

Roland Säde, the Chief Marketing Officer of Atomic Wallet, informed Cointelegraph that the team is taking all necessary steps to recover the funds, and that a concrete plan will be formulated once the investigation is concluded.

Users have reported that their entire portfolios have been lost due to Atomic Wallet being exploited.

He proposed that victims follow the illegal transfers and inform the most widely-used crypto exchanges, which “could stop the fraudsters from exchanging the money.”

“We are also informing them directly,” he stated, “but the more people that are aware of the hackers, the more difficult it is for them to do their activities.”

However, Elliptic’s latest findings may already be too late for many.

Magazine: Is it ever appropriate for crypto projects to negotiate with hackers? Most likely.