3. ByBit
When: February
What happened?
Korean threat actors pulled off what was held up as the biggest digital heist in history when they stole $1.5bn from the crypto exchange in February.
Who nominated it, and why?
ByBit made the cut for four of our panellists, namely Bridewell Cyber Threat Intelligence Principal Lead Gavin Knapp, Sapphire CEO Ian Thomas, CyXcel Co-founder and COO Jano Bermudes, and Quorum Cyber CEO/Chief Threat Officer pairing Federico Charosky and Paul Caiazzo.
Asked to explain his reasoning, Knapp was quick to point out that North Korean threat actors may be using the proceeds to fund the country’s weapons programme.
“North Korean threat actors continue to be the experts at performing cryptocurrency theft,” he said.
It was the unusual nature of the attack that caught the eye of Quorum Cyber’s Charosky and Caiazzo, meanwhile.
“Most financially motivated cybercriminals tend towards extortion rather than direct theft, largely due to the sophistication often required for attacks on smart contracts and blockchain bridges,” they said.
“North Korea in particular leverages this knowledge to perform crypto heists and the Lazarus Group is notorious for a number of other successful heists, though none this large.”
The breach caused a significant drop in the price of the Ethereum cryptocurrency and increased regularly scrutiny, CyXel’s Bermudes noted.
“It caught my eye because I worked on a security review of their wallet provider’s biggest competitor,” he added.
Channel takeaway:
Sapphire’s Thomas said the cyber-attack highlights the danger of supply chain and insider threats.
“While this attack did require deep knowledge of blockchain and smart contracts, it was only possible through the more common, everyday social engineering attacks organisations around the world also have to deal with,” Quorum Cyber’s Charosky and Caiazzo added.
Two cyber-attacks were considered more significant by our leadership panel. See next page for more…
