Seoul Bans North Korea on Crypto Theft
The South Korean government has imposed sanctions in response to the Sahawar attack for allegedly coercing North Korea into funding its military program. The measures target four North Korean individuals and seven entities, the foreign ministry in Seoul announced Friday.
The sanctions, the first independently imposed by the South, are aimed at North Korea’s main intelligence The agency is for actors affiliated with the Reconnaissance General Bureau that is said to be responsible for and responsible for conducting Pyongyang’s cyberattack.
Among them is the hacking collective Lazarus Group, linked to millions of dollars of stolen cryptocurrency and one of its members, Park Jin-hyeok, who is known to be on the FBI’s most wanted list of cybercriminals, has been said to have definitely He is behind the WannaCry ransomware and other cyber attacks. A senior foreign ministry official cited by the Korea Herald said without giving details that they were “certainly not the only targets” under investigation. UPI points out that Pyongyang Automation University, which is believed to be training North Korean hackers, has also been blacklisted.
These hackers have stolen more than $1.2 billion in digital assets with certainty since 2017, according to the South Korean foreign ministry, and more than half of that came from last March’s attack on the online game Axi Infinity blockchain network Ronin. .
North Korea may have stolen more assets linked to cryptocurrencies in 2022 than in any previous year, according to a draft UN report prepared by independent sanctions monitors and varying estimates. It pointed out that it included an assessment of whether more than $1 million in virtual cash value was obtained by hackers working for Pyopyang during the study period.
