Search results for 2021 cryptocurrency hack | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

A U.K. national has pleaded guilty in the U.S. in connection with the July 2020 Twitter attack affecting numerous high-profile accounts and defrauding other users of the platform. Joseph James O'Connor, who also went by the online alias PlugwalkJoe , admitted to "his role in cyberstalking and multiple schemes that involve computer hacking, including the July 2020 hack of Twitter," the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) said. The 23-year-old individual was extradited from Spain on April 26 after the Spanish National Court, in February,  approved  the DoJ request to hand over O'Connor to face 14 criminal charges in the U.S. The  massive hack , which took place on July 15, 2020, involved O'Connor and his co-conspirators seizing control of 130 Twitter accounts, including those belonging to Barack Obama, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk, to perpetrate a cryptocurrency scam that netted them $120,000 in a few hours. The attack was made possible by using social engineering te...

A married couple from New York City has pleaded guilty to money laundering charges in connection with the 2016 hack of cryptocurrency stock exchange Bitfinex, resulting in the theft of about 120,000 bitcoin. The development comes more than a year after Ilya Lichtenstein, 35, and his wife, Heather Morgan, 33, were  arrested in February 2022 , following the seizure of roughly 95,000 of the stolen crypto assets that were held by the defendants. The funds were valued at $3.6 billion at the time. Since then, the U.S. government said it has seized another approximately $475 million tied to the breach. "Lichtenstein used a number of advanced hacking tools and techniques to gain access to Bitfinex's network," the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ)  said . "Once inside their systems, Lichtenstein fraudulently authorized more than 2,000 transactions in which 119,754 bitcoin was transferred from Bitfinex to a cryptocurrency wallet in Lichtenstein's control." He is ...

Ilya Lichtenstein, who pleaded guilty to the 2016 hack of cryptocurrency stock exchange Bitfinex, has been sentenced to five years in prison, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) announced Thursday. Lichtenstein was charged for his involvement in a money laundering scheme that led to the theft of nearly 120,000 bitcoins (valued at over $10.5 billion at current prices) from the crypto exchange. Heather Rhiannon Morgan, his wife, also pleaded guilty to the same crimes last year. They were both arrested in February 2022. Morgan is scheduled to be sentenced on November 18. "Lichtenstein, 35, hacked into Bitfinex's network in 2016, using advanced hacking tools and techniques," the DoJ said in a press statement. "Once inside the network, Lichtenstein fraudulently authorized more than 2,000 transactions transferring 119,754 bitcoin from Bitfinex to a cryptocurrency wallet in Lichtenstein’s control." TRM Labs said Lichtenstein exploited a vulnerability in Bit...

An Indian national has pleaded guilty in the U.S. over charges of stealing more than $37 million by setting up a website that impersonated the Coinbase cryptocurrency exchange platform. Chirag Tomar, 30, pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. He was arrested on December 20, 2023, upon entering the country. "Tomar and his co-conspirators engaged in a scheme to steal millions in cryptocurrency from hundreds of victims located worldwide and in the United States, including in the Western District of North Carolina," the Department of Justice (DoJ) said last week. The website, created around June 2021, was named "CoinbasePro[.]com" in an effort to masquerade as Coinbase Pro and deceive unsuspecting users into believing that they were accessing the legitimate version of the virtual currency exchange. It's worth noting that Coinbase discontinued the offering in favor of Advanced Trade ...

The U.S. Treasury Department has implicated the North Korea-backed Lazarus Group (aka Hidden Cobra) in the theft of $540 million from video game Axie Infinity's Ronin Network last month. On Thursday, the Treasury  tied  the Ethereum  wallet address  that received the stolen digital currency to the threat actor and sanctioned the funds by adding the address to the Office of Foreign Assets Control's (OFAC) Specially Designated Nationals ( SDN ) List. "The FBI, in coordination with Treasury and other U.S. government partners, will continue to expose and combat the DPRK's use of illicit activities – including cybercrime and cryptocurrency theft – to generate revenue for the regime," the intelligence and law enforcement agency  said  in a statement. The cryptocurrency heist, the second-largest cyber-enabled theft to date, involved the siphoning of 173,600 Ether (ETH) and 25.5 million USD Coins from the Ronin cross-chain bridge, which allows users to transfe...

Threat actors with ties to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea) have been instrumental in driving a surge in global cryptocurrency theft in 2025, accounting for at least $2.02 billion out of more than $3.4 billion stolen from January through early December. The figure represents a 51% increase year-over-year and $681 million more than 2024, when the threat actors stole $1.3 billion, according to Chainalysis' Crypto Crime Report shared with The Hacker News. "This marks the most severe year on record for DPRK crypto theft in terms of value stolen, with DPRK attacks also accounting for a record 76% of all service compromises," the blockchain intelligence company said . "Overall, 2025’s numbers bring the lower-bound cumulative estimate for cryptocurrency funds stolen by the DPRK to $6.75 billion." The February compromise of cryptocurrency exchange Bybit alone is responsible for $1.5 billion of the $2.02 billion plundered by North ...

The U.S. Treasury Department on Friday moved to sanction virtual currency mixer Blender.io, marking the first time a mixing service has been subjected to economic blockades. The move signals continued efforts on the part of the government to prevent North Korea's Lazarus Group from laundering the funds stolen from the  unprecedented hack of Ronin Bridge  in late March. The newly imposed sanctions, issued by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), target 45 Bitcoin addresses linked to Blender.io and four new wallets linked to Lazarus Group, an advanced persistent with ties to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). "Blender was used in processing over $20.5 million of the illicit proceeds," the Treasury  said , adding it was utilized by DPRK to "support its malicious cyber activities and money-laundering of stolen virtual currency." Cryptocurrency mixers, also called  tumblers , are privacy-focused services that allow users to move cr...

Not every risk looks like an attack. Some problems start as small glitches, strange logs, or quiet delays that don’t seem urgent—until they are. What if your environment is already being tested, just not in ways you expected? Some of the most dangerous moves are hidden in plain sight. It’s worth asking: what patterns are we missing, and what signals are we ignoring because they don’t match old playbooks? This week’s reports bring those quiet signals into focus—from attacks that bypassed MFA using trusted tools, to supply chain compromises hiding behind everyday interfaces. Here's what stood out across the cybersecurity landscape: ⚡ Threat of the Week Cloudflare Blocks Massive 7.3 Tbps DDoS Attack — Cloudflare said it autonomously blocked the largest distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack ever recorded, which hit a peak of 7.3 terabits per second (Tbps). The attack, the company said, targeted an unnamed hosting provider and delivered 37.4 terabytes in 45 seconds. It origi...

Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX has confirmed that it was the target of a security breach that led to the theft of $230 million in cryptocurrency assets. "A cyber attack occurred in one of our [multi-signature] wallets involving a loss of funds exceeding $230 million," the company said in a statement. "This wallet was operated utilizing the services of Liminal's digital asset custody and wallet infrastructure from February 2023." The Mumbai-based company said the attack stemmed from a mismatch between the information that was displayed on Liminal's interface and what was actually signed. It said the payload was replaced to transfer wallet control to an attacker. Crypto custody firm Liminal is one of the six signatories on the wallet and is responsible for transaction verifications. "Our preliminary investigations show that one of the self custody multi-sig smart contract wallets created outside of the Liminal ecosystem has been compromised...

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has announced the seizure of $500,000 worth of Bitcoin from North Korean hackers who extorted digital payments from several organizations by using a new ransomware strain known as Maui. "The seized funds include ransoms paid by healthcare providers in Kansas and Colorado," the DoJ  said  in a press release issued Tuesday. The recovery of the bitcoin ransoms comes after the agency said it took control of two cryptocurrency accounts that were used to receive payments to the tune of $100,000 and $120,000 from the medical centers. The DoJ did not disclose where the rest of the payments originated from. "Reporting cyber incidents to law enforcement and cooperating with investigations not only protects the United States, it is also good business," said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the DoJ's National Security Division. "The reimbursement to these victims of the ransom shows why it pays to work with law en...

A U.K. citizen who took part in the massive July 2020 hack of Twitter has been sentenced to five years in prison in the U.S. Joseph James O'Connor (aka PlugwalkJoe), 24, was awarded the sentence on Friday in the Southern District of New York, a little over a month  after  he  pleaded guilty  to the criminal schemes. He was  arrested  in Spain in July 2021. The infamous Twitter breach allowed the defendant and his co-conspirators to obtain unauthorized access to backend tools used by Twitter, abusing them to hijack 130 popular accounts to perpetrate a crypto scam that netted them about $120,000 in illegal profits. "In other instances, the co-conspirators sold access to Twitter accounts to others," the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ)  said . "O'Connor communicated with others regarding purchasing unauthorized access to a variety of Twitter accounts, including accounts associated with public figures around the world." The defendant has also been acc...

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Monday confirmed that North Korean threat actors were responsible for the theft of $100 million in cryptocurrency assets from  Harmony Horizon Bridge  in June 2022. The law enforcement agency attributed the hack to the  Lazarus Group  and APT38 (aka BlueNoroff, Copernicium, and Stardust Chollima), the latter of which is a North Korean state-sponsored threat group that specializes in financial cyber operations. The FBI further stated the Harmony intrusion leveraged an attack campaign dubbed  TraderTraitor  that was disclosed by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in April 2022. The modus operandi entailed utilizing social engineering tricks to deceive employees of cryptocurrency companies into downloading rogue applications as part of a seemingly benign recruitment effort. "On Friday, January 13, 2023, North Korean cyber actors used RAILGUN, a privacy protocol, to laun...

Two individuals have been arrested in Australia and the U.S. in connection with an alleged scheme to develop and distribute a remote access trojan called Hive RAT (previously Firebird). The U.S. Justice Department (DoJ)  said  the malware "gave the malware purchasers control over victim computers and enabled them to access victims' private communications, their login credentials, and other personal information." A 24-year-old individual named Edmond Chakhmakhchyan (aka "Corruption") from Van Nuys in Los Angeles, California, was taken into custody after he was caught selling a license of Hive RAT to an undercover employee of a law enforcement agency. He has been charged with one count of conspiracy and one count of advertising a device as an interception device, each of which carries a penalty of five years in prison. Chakhmakhchyan pleaded not guilty and was ordered to stand trial on June 4, 2024. Court documents allege a partnership between the malware...

Peter Parker might not be a mastermind cryptocurrency criminal, but the name Spiderman is quickly becoming more associated with the mining landscape.  ReasonLabs , a leading provider of cybersecurity prevention and detection software, recently discovered a new form of malware hacking into customer computers in the guise of the latest Spiderman movie.  As perhaps the most  talked-about movie for some time , Spiderman: No Way Home represents an excellent opportunity for hackers. It's a chance to connect with millions of potential targets, and hack into computers all around the globe. All today's malicious actors need to do is promise their victims access to the latest movie, and they get an all-access pass to their PC.  The cryptocurrency mining malware discovered by ReasonLabs disguises itself as a torrent for the Spiderman: No Way Home movie, encouraging viewers around the world to download the file, and open the computer to criminals.  Using a Mask: Trickin...

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has charged two Russian nationals in connection with masterminding the 2014 digital heist of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox. According to unsealed indictments released last week, Alexey Bilyuchenko, 43, and Aleksandr Verner, 29, have been accused of conspiring to launder approximately 647,000 bitcoins stolen from September 2011 through at least May 2014 as a result of unauthorized access to a server holding crypto wallets used by Mt. Gox customers. "Starting in 2011, Bilyuchenko and Verner stole a massive amount of cryptocurrency from Mt. Gox, contributing to the exchange's ultimate insolvency," Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr.  said  in a statement. "Armed with the ill-gotten gains from Mt. Gox, Bilyuchenko allegedly went on to help set up the notorious  BTC-e virtual currency exchange , which laundered funds for cyber criminals worldwide." Bilyuchenko and Verner are also alleged to hav...

This week, cyber attackers are moving quickly, and businesses need to stay alert. They’re finding new weaknesses in popular software and coming up with clever ways to get around security. Even one unpatched flaw could let attackers in, leading to data theft or even taking control of your systems. The clock is ticking—if defenses aren’t updated regularly, it could lead to serious damage. The message is clear: don’t wait for an attack to happen. Take action now to protect your business. Here’s a look at some of the biggest stories in cybersecurity this week: from new flaws in WinRAR and NVIDIA Triton to advanced attack techniques you should know about. Let’s get into the details. ⚡ Threat of the Week Trend Micro Warns of Actively Exploited 0-Day — Trend Micro has released temporary mitigations to address critical security flaws in on-premise versions of Apex One Management Console that it said have been exploited in the wild. The vulnerabilities (CVE-2025-54948 and CVE-2025-54987),...