South Korea has taken action against the North in response to a series of cyberattacks that always end with the theft of cryptocurrency. Seoul authorities claim they are sure that the digital assets are being used by the regime to fund its nuclear and missile-development programs.
South Korea Imposes First Cybercrime Penalties on North Korean Hackers
South Korean cyberattacks believed to be carried out by North Korean hackers prompted the authorities to impose sanctions on the North to finance its military projects. The target of the measures: 4 individuals and 7 North Korean entities, the Foreign Ministry in Seoul declared on Friday.
These sanctions are the first and only independent ones imposed by South Korea to identify the target actors linked to North Korea’s primary intelligence agency, the General Reconnaissance Office, which is believed to be responsible for Pyongyang’s cyber warfare operations.
Among these are the hacker collective Lazarus Group, linked to hundreds of thousands of dollars in stolen cryptocurrency, and one of its members, Park Jin Hyok, who is on the FBI’s Most Wanted list and is believed to be behind the Wannacry ransomware and other cyberattacks.
“These are not the only targets,” a senior Foreign Ministry official was quoted by the Korea Herald as saying without providing any further details. UPI reported that Pyongyang University of Automation was also believed to have been training North Korean hackers, and was also blacklisted.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry alleged that these hackers have stolen more than $1.2 billion in digital currency funds since 2017, more than half of which was stolen in March’s attack on the online gambling blockchain network, Ronin Axis Infinity.
According to a draft UN report seen by independent sanctions monitors, North Korea earned more than $1 billion from cryptocurrency thefts in 2022 alone. The document, which is not public, includes different estimates as well as an assessment of the amount of digital cash that hackers have extracted over the research period.
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