Twitter's
Hackers Tried to Launder Collected BTC Via Gambling and P2P Platforms
The hackers that hit Twitter
last week and hijacked dozens of high-profile accounts to promote a fake
bitcoin giveaway have moved some of the BTC they received from users to
peer-to-peer (P2P) trading platforms and cryptocurrency gambling websites in
a bid to launder the funds.
According to blockchain
forensics firm CipherTrace, 0.2 BTC were moved to a P2P
exchange via a “peel chain,” a chain of transactions
that sees the amount of BTC being moved from wallet to wallet, with each
movement including outputs to other wallets that “peel” off from the larger
amount. At the end of the chain the funds move back to a single address, but
often hackers use peel chains more than once to throw off blockchain sleuths.
This tactic, according to
CipherTrace, is favored by North Korean hackers, as the firm believes Chinese
nationals linked to Pyongyang laundered over $100 million worth of crypto
using peel chains.
Using peel chains, the Twitter
hackers reportedly moved funds to P2P marketplaces, gambling platforms, and
even a Singapore-based regulated exchange, CipherTrace added. Each peel chain
contained between 0.1 and 0.15 BTC, but the regulated trading platform
received more than 1 BTC from the hackers.
CipherTrace also identified a
transaction to an old Binance cold wallet, which was believed to have been
made to mock investigators following the coins on the blockchain.
