Hackers working for the North Korean government have stolen more than $ 2 billion in encryption so far this year, According to Blockchain Elliptic Analysis Company.
On Tuesday, elliptical Posted a blog post With this new estimate, which the company says is the “largest annual total, with three months still going” and based on more than 30 hacks this year.
The previous record was in 2022, when North Korea stole $ 1.35 billion. The total amount of stolen encryption of the regime since 2017 is at least $ 6 billion, according to Elliptic, which said that the number may still be undervalued.
“The real figure may be even higher.
“We know many other thefts that share some of the characteristics of North Korea activity, but they do not have sufficient evidence that is permanently attributed.
The company said North Korea’s main objectives are still cryptographic exchanges, but the regime hackers also begin to target “high -value people” who possess large quantities of encryption.
And this is not the only recent change, the company said.
“The majority of hacks in 2025 have committed through social engineering attacks, where hackers cheat or handle individuals to access encryption,” read the blog post. “This marks a shift from previous attacks where in many cases technical imperfections in cryptographic infrastructure have been exploited to steal the funds.
Elliptical assessment seems to be aligned with other organizations. Last year, Estimated by the United Nations Security Council That between 2017 and 2023, North Korea hackers stole $ 3 billion in encryption. Adding Elliptic’s estimates for $ 2 billion and in recent years’ $ 742.8 million, the total is approaching $ 6 billion.
The governments of Japan, South Korea and the United States accused the North Korean hackers of stealing more than $ 659 million in 2024, about the same number as Elliptic’s.
The United Nations believes The regime led by Kim Jong-Un uses stolen encryption to fund the nuclear weapons program.
This year’s record was mainly powered by the huge theft of over $ 1.4 billion by Crypto Exchange Bybit, which the FBI and several surveillance companies and researchers attributed to North Korea.
Other victims of North Korean hackers in the cryptographic world over the years have played in the Axie Infinity game ($ 625 million in 2022), Crypto Startup Harmony ($ 100 in 2022) and Crypto Exchange Wazirx ($ 235 million in 2024), among many others.
