BitMEX Thwarts Lazarus Group’s Phishing Attack—Calls Their Bluff ’Amateur Hour’
BitMEX just schooled the Lazarus Group in Cybersecurity 101. The exchange spotted and blocked a clumsy phishing attempt by the notorious hacking collective—dismissing their tactics as ’unsophisticated’ in a move that’s either refreshing transparency or an accidental taunt.
Active defense wins again: While Lazarus keeps recycling tired phishing lures, crypto’s old guard is tightening the screws. Pro tip for hackers: maybe upgrade from those 2016 playbooks before targeting derivatives traders who’ve seen it all.
Meanwhile, traditional finance still gets phished via fax. Priorities.
Still a threat
But as founder and CEO of Nominis, Snir Levi warns, growing knowledge of the Lazarus Group’s tactics doesn’t necessarily make them any less of a threat.
“The Lazarus Group uses multiple techniques to steal cryptocurrencies,” he told Decrypt. “Based on the complaints we collect from individuals, we can assume that they are trying to defraud people on a daily basis.”
The size of some of their hauls has been shocking.
In February, hackers drained over $1.4 billion from Bybit, made possible by the group tricking an employee at SAFE Wallet into running malicious code on their computer.
“Even the Bybit hack started with social engineering,” Levi said.
Other campaigns include Radiant Capital, where a contractor was compromised via a malicious PDF file that installed a backdoor.
The attack methods range from basic phishing and fake job offers to advanced post-access tactics like smart contract tampering and cloud infrastructure manipulation.
The BitMEX disclosure adds to a growing body of evidence documenting Lazarus Group’s multi-layered strategies. It follows another report in May from Kraken, in which the company described an attempt by a North Korean to get hired.
U.S. and international officials have said North Korea uses crypto theft to fund its weapons programs, with some reports estimating it may supply up to half of the regime’s missile development budget.
Edited by Sebastian Sinclair
