UN Panel Reports that North Korea Hacked $571M From Asian Crypto Exchanges
According to a recent report, a panel of experts has brought to the notice of the United Nations Security Council and North Korea’s sanctions committee that the country uses cyberattacks and blockchain technology break some economic rules and to get foreign money. With hacking, the country has obtained about $670 million in foreign exchange and virtual currency.
North Korea Under New Economic Rules
Based on a recent report, the United Nations has set new economic rules for Pyongyang as per the request made by the United States regarding its nuclear and missile programs. North Korea is presently under duress as these new rules are affecting it’s coal exports which is a major foreign exchange earner.
For almost 4 years now, North Korea has reportedly cyberattacked financial companies overseas and used blockchain to cover its wrongdoings.
Also, between January 2017 and September 2018, the country has reportedly hacked virtual currency exchanges in Asia about five times and these exchanges procured losses of $571 million. These attacks were reported to have been carried out by a specialized military division which is now reportedly a very crucial part of the North Korean government policy.
Exchanges Allegedly Haked by North Korea
Although no trading platform was mentioned, Japanese crypto exchange, Coincheck announced that it was robbed of $530 million worth of the NEM virtual currency during an attack in January.
Another cyber attack was carried out against Zaif, a crypto exchange operating out of Japan in September of last year making the exchange to lose $60 million.
Furthermore, personal information of more than 10 million users of e-commerce platform, Interpark was stolen in South Korea with the hackers demanding a ransom of $2.7 million in exchange for the stolen data. The government of South Korea believes that the attacks were perpetrated by North Korea and the expert panel thinks that it is part of the atrocities committed by them to obtain foreign currency.
