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- 1 Hackers pilfered information on nearly 1,500 individuals between March and October 2023.
- 2 State-backed North Korean hackers have raked in nearly $2 Billion from crypto companies and banks.
South Korea allegedly witnessed malicious attempts from hackers belonging to their proclaimed enemy North Korea. The National Police Agency of the former region reported bad actors posing as journalists and South Korean government officials in an attempt to steal information and cryptocurrencies. State-backed North Korean hackers have raked in nearly $2 Billion from crypto companies and banks.
Personal Info Stolen And Crypto Funds Exploited
Korea Joongang Daily, a daily newspaper in South Korea, first reported the confirmation of cyber theft by police. Hackers pilfered information on nearly 1,500 individuals between March and October 2023. This includes data ranging from normal citizens, government officials, military personnel, national security, and more.
The police said North Korean phishing activities have grown this year. Phishing involves sending clickbait malicious links to deceive potential victims into revealing sensitive information. Terms like “notice” and “questionnaire” were used against the affected South Koreans as clickbaits in this attack. The malware in the link was designed to steal personal information and data.
Moreover, the attack expropriated some user identities (IDs) and profiles to pilfer crypto from their accounts. Some crypto mining programs were executed on some 150 servers the hackers successfully seized. Law enforcement has shut down 42 North Korean websites that were purportedly being managed by native hackers.
A recent security analysis highlighted that North Korean hackers breached a Russian missile developer at least five times in 2022 according to Reuters. Cyber-espionage teams like Lazaras and ScarCruft installed stealthy backdoors in a Moscow-based rocket design bureau. Experts noted that “the incident shows how the isolated country will even target its allies, such as Russia, in a bid to acquire critical technologies.”
Lazarus Group posed as a Meta recruiter targeting a Spanish aerospace company in a phishing campaign during September. The attackers presented malware disguised as a couple of coding challenges to users, American media company CyberScoop reported.
Peter Kálnai, a researcher at a Slovak cybersecurity company, noted about the malware that “strategic shift enhances stealth, making detecting and analyzing the attacker’s motives more challenging.” Moreover, the malware was tailored to decrypt intended target machines, thus avoiding unintended ones that were associated with security researchers.
North Korean hackers have allegedly stolen funds to be funneled to nuclear programs in the country according to American news channel and website CNBC. Data provided by TRM Labs, a blockchain intelligence firm, underscores that North Korea-affiliated hackers stole crypto assets worth $200 Million.
Chainalysis, a blockchain analytics company, notes in its report that, “Most experts agree the North Korean government is using these stolen assets to fund its nuclear weapons programs.” TRM Labs intelligence analyst Nick Carlsen notes, “They need every dollar they can. And this is just obviously a much more efficient way for North Korea to make money.”
Earlier this year, news agency Associated Press published an article based on a wide-ranging report, highlighting that North Korean hackers used sophisticated techniques to execute attacks to steal information potentially useful for nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Anurag is working as a fundamental writer for The Coin Republic since 2021. He likes to exercise his curious muscles and research deep into a topic. Though he covers various aspects of the crypto industry, he is quite passionate about the Web3, NFTs, Gaming, and Metaverse, and envisions them as the future of the (digital) economy. A reader & writer at heart, he calls himself an “average guitar player” and a fun footballer.
