North Korean hacker get off with at least $ 400 million worth of digital assets in at least seven online heists on cryptocurrency platform last year , according to a newfangled report byChainalysis .
The probe found that 2021 was one of the most successful years on phonograph recording for cyber - malefactor in the so - called “ Hermit Kingdom ” with the value of steal cryptocurrency rising by 40 percent from 2020 to 2021 . Up to 58 percent of the steal cryptocurrency was Ether , while Bitcoin made up just 20 percent of the clams . The remain 22 percent was altcoins or ERC-20 tokens , blockchain - based assets that run on the Ethereum platform .
The quarry were mainly investing house and centralized exchanges . Using a advanced armoury of phishing come-on , code exploits , malware , and advanced societal engineering to sneak out cryptocurrency from the organizations ’ online billfold into addresses linked to the Democratic People ’s Republic of Korea ( DPRK ) . Once the funds were stop up , they were win over into other cryptocurrencies and mixed into other notecase in an attack to cover their tracks . Eventually , the wash cryptocurrency is convert into “ conventional ” hard cash using crypto - to - rescript exchange based in Asia .
The precise identity of the hackers is n’t known , but Chainalysis believe many of the recent approach were carried out by the Lazarus Group , a cybercrime collection with strong links to the North Korean authorities of Kim Jong - un , according toUS intelligence . The Lazarus Group is opine to have emerged around 2010 , but they gained public notorietywhen they hackedSony Pictures Entertainment in 2014 . The hack stole personal information about Sony Pictures employee and demanded the Sony picture studio apartment withdraw its upcoming filmThe Interview , a 2014 drollery asterisk James Franco and Seth Rogen about a plot to assassinate Kim Jong - un .
The Chainalysis investigation found that North Korea is presently holding a immense amount of cryptocurrency , currently valued at around $ 170 million . It ’s not clear why they are sitting on the money , but the report source indicate it show up that this is not just a hotfoot heist by rogue crook , but a unagitated and deliberate program that ’s being carried out with confidence .
“ These behaviors , put together , paint a portraiture of a nation that supports cryptocurrency - enabled offense on a massive scale . Systematic and advanced , North Korea ’s government – be it through the Lazarus Group or its other reprehensible syndicates – has cemented itself as an advanced persistent threat to the cryptocurrency industriousness in 2021,”Chainalysissaid in a blog post .
wreck by heavy outside sanctions , the DPRK is increasingly looking towards cryptocurrency as a way of funding its costly atomic and missile exploitation programs . In 2021 , a panel of expertstoldthe UN Security Council that North Korea amassed some $ 316.4 million in cryptocurrency hacks from 2019 to November 2020 , some of which would go towards their developing atomic weapon and ballistic missiles .
It will be an improbably complicated task to mold out where the fund from last twelvemonth ’s heists will end up , but it ’s improbable to bespent on NFTs .
