Hackers cash out in Bybit crypto heist and more

Hackers cash out in Bybit crypto heist

In late February 2025, hackers stole nearly $1.5 billion in digital tokens from Bybit, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency exchange. Nearly a month later, they’ve successfully cashed out at least $300 million from the heist.

The Lazarus Group, a collection of sophisticated hackers connected to the North Korean government, are reportedly working around the clock using complex processes to convert more than 400,000 Ethereum crypto coins into cash before the funds can be recovered.

Bybit CEO Ben Zhou says he’s “waging war on Lazarus” with the Recover Bounty Program to solicit help in identifying transactions involving stolen coins on the public blockchain. But help has been hard to come by: Bybit accused another crypto exchange of allowing cashouts of these funds through its platform, according to the BBC.

It’s believed that hackers used social engineering to access a developer’s computer, through which they added malicious JavaScript code, causing Bybit to route funds from its cold wallet to the fraudsters’ possession during what was supposed to be a routine transfer.

Fraud concerns plague academic journals

Scientists are calling out the quality and accuracy of research papers published by scientific and scholarly journals, with some questioning whether standards at major publications are enough to guard against fraudulent submissions.

According to research identified by The Wall Street Journal, major for-profit publishers — a growing number of which control high-profile journals and subscriptions — nearly doubled the amount of research papers published in 2022 compared to 2016. Many companies levy “article processing charges” up to thousands of dollars for scholars to publish their findings.

That dramatic increase in for-profit publications seemingly correlates with a decrease in research quality. Scholarly journal indexer, Web of Science, has delisted several high-profile journals from its library over quality concerns, and scientists have issued public remarks chiding publisher, Springer Nature, for failing to protect against “fraudulent and low quality” research. Cuts to staff at major journals have sparked allegations that editors are being supplemented by AI tools.

Despite accusations of unethical and fraudulent activity in the broader research community, profit margins for these commercial publishers have never been higher, leading many in the scientific community to question if long-standing practices, such as peer review, are still taking place.

Student loan fraud in the U.K.

On the heels of a Sunday Times report that millions of pounds in student loans have been claimed by people with no intent to study, U.K. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has called on the Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA) to coordinate an investigation into the claims.

Phillipson called the evidence of loan fraud “one of the biggest financial scandals in the history of our universities sector.”

According to the BBC, possible fraud has been identified mostly at small, franchised universities that provide courses for large, established universities in the U.K. The BBC says there’s evidence that Romanian nationals have been recruited to enroll at these schools for the funds and that loan applicants have supplied fake documents and duplicate addresses.

Foreign students with settled status in the U.K. may borrow government-subsidized loans to pay for tuition and living expenses. Tuition fees are paid directly to the schools, while the rest is paid to the students. Students repay the loans once they start earning a certain level of income after graduation, and the loans are written off after 40 years.