FBI pins source of attack against Stake at Lazarus Group

Stake, a trailblazer crypto gambling company, has recently suffered a cyber-attack against its operations which is estimated at more than $40m. The attack has triggered a check by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) which has pinned the source of the attack at Lazarus Group, a notorious hacker collective, which has pulled off a series of daring and complicated attacks against institutions, entire states, and private companies.

According to the FBI, an approximate amount of $41m worth of virtual currency was stolen from Stake.com, the authority shared on its official website. Investigators were able to determine the date of the attack as September 4, 2023, and attributed it to the APT38, the alias of the Lazarus Group.

The attack is tracked to the DPRK-based group, which has supposedly been able to steal the amount in various denominations, and moved the funds across the Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain and Polygon networks. The FBI has also been able to publish a list of individual virtual currency addresses that are supposed to have been used to siphon off the funds.

As a whole, the Lazarus Group has been one of the most formidable if notorious forces in the world when it comes to conducting cybercrime. The collective has been able to steal no less than $200m, according to the FBI’s own estimates, and this is for 2023 alone.

Private sector entities have not been spared from the attack, with this being the first case that a casino of Stake’s stature has been targeted by the company. In the meantime, Stake.com has assured its users that customer money was safe, as the company has been able to shield customer funds from the attack.

Although fears persisted shortly after the attack that Stake.com would restrict withdrawals and perhaps face a tough patch, those fears were dismissed only five hours after the incident with the company restarting withdrawals for all currencies.

Stake’s operation as of right now has continued unhampered by the attack. The FBI’s weighing in on the matter and the incident itself suggests that crypto gambling companies may need to bolster their security.

The crypto gambling industry has usually not been the target of such attacks, but things have been changing. Earlier this year, Alphapo, a payment processor that services various gambling brands, also suffered an attack that cost it $23m.

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