Crypto▼ Bearish
Bybit Sues North Korea Over $1.5B Hack, Secures Freeze Order
North Korea and the Lazarus Group are named defendants in Bybit's $1.5B suit. About $48.4M is recovered and $30.5M frozen across 28 exchanges as the case proceeds.
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Bybit has filed a civil lawsuit against North Korea over the theft of $1.5 billion from the exchange in February 2025, and won a court order freezing stolen assets that investigators have identified.
The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, names the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and its Reconnaissance General Bureau as defendants, along with the Lazarus Group, the state-linked hacking outfit U.S. authorities blame for the attack. Unidentified individuals and entities holding or moving the funds are named as John Doe defendants.
A judge granted a preliminary injunction barring the transfer or dissipation of identified assets while the case proceeds, and found Bybit likely to succeed on the merits, the exchange said on Friday. In granting an earlier temporary restraining order, the court described the theft as among the biggest the industry has seen.
"It was an attack on trust in our industry," co-founder and CEO Ben Zhou said in a statement Thursday, adding that Bybit had worked with investigators, exchanges, regulators and law enforcement before turning to the courts.