In 2025, hackers linked to North Korea stole a record amount of cryptocurrency assets exceeding $2 billion. This is nearly three times the figure from the previous year and represents the largest annual total recorded to date.
This is reported by Finway
Increase in Attacks and New Fraud Methods
Experts note that the total amount of funds stolen by North Korean groups has already surpassed $6 billion. Just this year, experts have recorded over 30 major incidents, including attacks on platforms such as Bybit, LND.fi, WOO X, and Seedify. In comparison, in 2022, a record amount of $1.35 billion was recorded at that time, while the entire year of 2024 saw less than $700 million.
Focus on Private Investors and Development of Money Laundering Methods
According to the report, criminals are increasingly targeting private investors. Most attacks are carried out through social engineering—fraudsters attempt to deceive users into granting access to their cryptocurrency wallets rather than exploiting technical vulnerabilities. This indicates that the main weak point in the security system is becoming the human element.
“This indicates that the weakest link in the security infrastructure is the human element, not the software code,” experts noted.
Furthermore, in response to the improvement of blockchain analytics tools, North Korean groups are complicating their own money laundering schemes. They use multi-stage asset mixing, transfers between different blockchains, and lesser-known networks with low levels of analytics to conceal the origins of the stolen funds.
- multi-stage asset mixing;
- transactions between different blockchains;
- lesser-known networks with low levels of analytics;
- and other methods.
In September 2025, the losses of crypto projects from hacker attacks exceeded $127 million, highlighting the scale and relevance of the cybersecurity issue in the digital asset sector.