Status: 02/07/2023 07:38 a.m
According to the United Nations, North Korea stole more money from cybercrime in the past year than ever before. It is estimated that more than a billion US dollars were stolen.
Nuclear weapons are said to be North Korea’s deterrent against the West. Weapon systems are tested again and again, the past year was marked by various rocket launches under the leadership of Kim Jong Un. An internal report by the United Nations now shows how the venture is financed – namely through hacker raids and cyber attacks
This shows “that 2022 was a record year for the theft of virtual assets in North Korea,” according to a previously confidential UN expert report that the dpa news agency was able to see. In the past six years, government hackers are estimated to have stolen up to $1.2 billion. The money, which was often invested anonymously in cryptocurrency, is then used by the heavily sanctioned country to finance its nuclear and missile program, which ruler Kim Jong Un has recently pushed ahead with.
North Korea accelerates nuclear weapons program
In the meantime, the UN experts see a significant acceleration in Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program. The stocks of stored uranium would increase, it is said. Earlier this year, Kim announced an exponential increase in his country’s nuclear arsenal, further escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula.
The UN reported last year that North Korea was preparing for its first nuclear test since 2017. Recently, construction work continued at the Punggye-ri underground nuclear test facility in the north of the country. According to the UN report, Pyongyang fired at least 73 ballistic missiles in 2022 in violation of UN Security Council resolutions, 42 of them in the last four months of the year. Among them was the test of a new type of solid fuel rocket.
Hacker association acts cleverly
North Korea’s cyber attacks are blamed, among others, on the state hacker group Lazarus and its subgroups. The United Nations observed increasingly sophisticated ransomware attacks and hacks targeting cryptocurrency marketplaces. In so-called ransomware attacks, the attackers penetrate systems, take control and lock the victims out. The data is usually encrypted and only made accessible again after paying a ransom.
According to the UN report, another scam used by hackers is to infect certain organizations active in the crypto business with malware in order to be able to intercept money transfers. “In addition, as part of the campaign, the hacking group registered fake domains impersonating well-known banks and venture capital firms,” it said.
North Korea is also trying to steal NFTs (“Non-Fungible Tokens”) via so-called phishing attacks. NFTs are unique digital assets. They can be used to identify digitized content such as art or pieces of music as originals and clarify ownership. The value of individual NFTs is sometimes in the millions.
North Korea relies on deterrence
With the missile tests and his nuclear program, Kim Jong Un wants to increase the pressure on the world community to lift the sanctions against his country. At the same time, diplomatic relations with the United States have been broken since Kim’s failed second summit with former US President Donald Trump in February 2019.
In May, the United States failed in the UN Security Council with a resolution for stricter international sanctions against Pyongyang. Russia and China vetoed the vote in New York.