4.2 • 7.8K Ratings
🗓️ 9 March 2025
⏱️ 24 minutes
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In February, hackers stole almost $1.5bn from the crypto trading platform, Bybit. Intelligence agencies blame Lazarus, an elite hacking group linked to North Korea. As the US announces a strategic crypto reserve, are we more vulnerable to cyber threats than ever before?
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0:00.0 | Hello, this is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. |
0:05.5 | I'm Valerie Sanderson with your weekly bonus from The Global Story, |
0:08.8 | which brings you a single story with depth and insight from the BBC's best journalists. |
0:14.7 | There's a new episode every weekday. |
0:16.5 | Just search for the global story wherever you get your pods. |
0:20.1 | And be sure to subscribe so you don't |
0:22.2 | miss a single episode. Here's my colleague, Lucy Hawkins. |
0:30.0 | It is likely the biggest heist in history. When the cryptocurrency trading platform Bybit was targeted last month, |
0:40.6 | hackers managed to steal almost $1.5 billion in just two minutes. |
0:49.2 | And as a race against time began to stop the culprits cashing out, |
0:53.4 | it didn't take long for fingers to point in one direction, North Korea. |
0:58.0 | The secretive country has long-faced allegations of state-sponsored hacking |
1:02.0 | via the elite Lazarus Group to prop up its ailing economy. |
1:06.0 | But analysts suggest its malicious activity is on the rise. |
1:13.1 | So after this latest mega theft, how are intelligence agencies fighting back? |
1:18.5 | And are we more vulnerable to hackers than ever before? |
1:25.3 | With me today is the BBC's cyber correspondent Joe Tidy. Hi, Joe. Hi. Talk us through what happened. |
1:31.8 | Well, it all happened on Friday night, which is normally when the hackers strike because people are off sort of let their guard down. |
1:38.8 | And what it is is this company called Bybit is a cryptocurrency exchange. Binance are really famous, Coinbase. They're the kind of the biggest in the world. But Bybit is a cryptocurrency exchange. |
1:47.7 | Binance are really famous, Coinbase. They're the kind of the biggest in the world. |
1:52.8 | But Bybit is also very big, about 60 million customers. And what you do with this app is that you exchange your pounds, dollars, rupees, whatever, for Bitcoin, Ethereum, any cryptocurrencies, |
1:59.5 | are obviously thousands of them. |
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