South Korea’s intelligence agency told lawmakers North Korean hackers could have been behind the $530 million theft of virtual coins from a Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck last month, Reuters quotes people familiar with the matter as saying.
The people told Reuters the National Intelligence Service did not present evidence that North Korean hackers were responsible for one of the largest cryptocurrency heists in history but flagged it as a possibility.
“It’s a possibility that North Korea was behind the theft,” one of the people told the agency.
The other person who spoke to Reuters said:
“It’s possible, but not a probable scenario backed by evidence that North Korea was behind the theft.”
The person said the virtual coin market remains a likely target for North Korean hackers due to its sheer size and light regulation but that there was no firm evidence the North was responsible.
Last month, Coincheck, one of Japan’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges, said it had about 58 billion yen ($530 million) worth of NEM virtual coins stolen and that it would return 46.3 billion yen to investors who had lost funds.
Kim Byung-kee, a member of South Korea’s parliamentary intelligence committee on Monday said North Koreans were responsible for billions lost in theft from local cryptocurrency exchanges in 2017.