Chainalysis announced on Aug. 16 that hacking-based cryptocurrency theft amounted to US$1.9 billion for the first seven months of this year, up 58 percent from a year ago, and the number of DeFi-related cases in particular increased a lot.
“Cases related to DeFi protocols and North Korea-related hacker groups, such as Lazarus, are estimated at US$1 billion” it said.
The U.S. government also recently pointed out that North Korea is hacking cryptocurrencies more frequently than before by taking advantage of security vulnerabilities. According to it, most of those stolen cryptocurrencies are used in nuclear missile development.