The U.S. Treasury Department has announced sanctions against North Korean cybercriminals responsible for stealing $ 2 billion from banks and cryptocurrency exchanges.
According to a U.S. Treasury Department press release, the Foreign Assets Control Office (OFAC) is launching a crackdown on three North Korea-sponsored hacking syndicates - the Lazarus Group, Bluenoroff, and Andariel. The last two groups are believed to be Lazarus units. Commenting on the decision, Deputy Finance Minister Sigal Mandelker said:
“The US Treasury Department will begin to take action against North Korean hacker groups that commit cyber attacks to finance weapons development programs. "We will continue to enforce existing US and UN sanctions against North Korea and work with the international community to improve the cyber security of financial networks."
At the beginning of August, the DPRK was accused of stealing $ 2 billion from banks and cryptocurrency exchanges for the development of weapons in a closed UN report. A week later, the UN released an expanded version of the North Korean cybercrime report, revealing new details of North Korean hacker operations. According to the report, North Korea carried out at least 35 hacks in 17 countries. The UN claims that South Korea took the brunt of the attack, bearing 10 attacks.
At the same time, at the beginning of the month, North Korea issued a statement in which it categorically denied any reports published by the United Nations linking the government with cyber attacks on cryptocurrency exchanges and financial organizations.
Despite the rebuttals, all the evidence suggests that North Korea carried out cyber attacks with the aim of accumulating crypto assets. Back in the fall of last year, Group-IB announced that the North Korean hacker group Lazarus stole $ 571 million in cryptocurrencies.
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