Most of the funds were immediately converted to the cryptocurrency ether, Elliptic said. The firm added that hackers have started laundering the stolen assets through Tornado Cash, a so-called"mixing" service that seeks to obscure the trail of funds. So far, around $39 million worth of ether has been sent to Tornado Cash.
Elliptic says it used"demixing" tools to trace the stolen crypto sent through Tornado Cash to several new ether wallets. Chainalysis, another blockchain security firm that's working with Harmony to investigate the hack, backed up the findings. According to the companies, the way the attack was carried out and the subsequent laundering of funds bear a number of similarities with previous crypto thefts believed to be perpetrated by Lazarus, including:Compromising passwords to a"multisig" wallet that requires only a couple signatures to initiate transactionsThe movement of funds stops during Asia-Pacific nighttime hours
Harmony said it is"working on various options" to reimburse users as it investigates the theft, but stressed that"additional time is needed." The company also offered a $1 million bounty for the return of the stolen crypto and information on the hack.