Tornado cash is accused of recent hacks in decentralized finance and laundering millions of dollars.
The Lazarus Group, a hacker group connected to the North Korean government, is said to have received more than $455 million thanks to Tornado Cash.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury has sanctioned this virtual currency mixer.
U.S. Treasury Department, on Monday, took to Twitter and posted, “Today, Treasury sanctioned virtual currency mixer Tornado Cash, which has been used to launder more than $7 billion worth of virtual currency since its creation in 2019. Virtual currency mixers that assist criminals threaten U.S. national security.”
The Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Brian E Nelson, said, “Despite public assurances otherwise, Tornado Cash has repeatedly failed to impose effective controls designed to stop it from laundering funds for malicious cyber actors regularly and without basic measures to address its risks”.
North Korea has been accused of using hackers to steal funds to finance its weapons programme.
The Treasury claims that Tornado Cash was also used to conceal $100 million in stolen property from a cyberattack against Harmony’s virtual currency company.
The agency claimed that although it provided the mixer with opportunities to stop such illegal acts, it did not do so.
Hackers Attack
The Crypto world is facing constant hacking attacks, and it doesn’t seem to stop.
Tornado cash seems to be behind most of these hackings.
According to Tom Robinson, co-founder of Elliptic, a cryptocurrency analytics firm,” “Tornado is a popular and important tool for cybercriminals and state-backed hacking groups.”
He also added, “In total, Elliptic’s analysis shows that at least $1.3bn in proceeds of crime such as ransomware, hacks and fraud have been laundered through Tornado Cash.”
As part of its efforts to achieve complete decentralization and transparency, Tornado Cash declared in July that its user interface code had been fully open-sourced.
However, the recent fiasco tells a different tale.
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