SNEAK PEEK
- Hackers have looted $1.7 trillion in virtual currencies since 2017.
- North Korea received cyber threats in exchange for limiting its nuclear program.
- The money is alleged to have been used by North Korea for its nuclear and missile program.
According to an AP news article quoting South Korea’s premier spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, North Korean-sponsored hackers have looted approximately $1.5 trillion in cryptocurrencies worldwide since 2017.
According to the NIS, North Korea is one of the world’s finest at stealing cryptocurrency. When U.N. financial sanctions were reinforced in 2017 in response to its nuclear and missile tests, the government turned its focus to cybercrime.
According to the NIS, South Korea was also vulnerable to different assaults in the Web3 domain, including the virtual world and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), with up to 1.18 million attacks by national and international hacker organizations prohibited in November of this year.
The US Treasury Department highlighted Tornado Cash’s assistance for these national attacks when it forbade Americans from using the Ethereum coin mixer in August.
The US Treasury Department highlighted Tornado Cash’s assistance for these national attacks when it forbade Americans from using the Ethereum coin mixer in August. Lazarus, a group of state-sponsored cyberterrorists from North Korea, was implicated in a $622 million attack of Sky Mavis’ Ethereum sidechain Ronin in March of this year.
On Harmony’s Horizon Bridge, which connects Harmony to Ethereum, Binance Chain, and Bitcoin, Lazarus was the main suspect in a $100 million theft. The NIS claims that North Korea’s cyber threats and other online activity have intensified due to international limitations on its nuclear and missile programs.
The organization predicts that North Korean cyber criminals will likely undertake more cyberattacks in the next year to get advanced South Korean technology and private data on South Korean foreign citizens.
North Korean hackers targeted DeFi systems mainly, generating 800 billion this year alone through ransom and other cyber threats.
