According to a new confidential report from the United Nations, North Korea has managed to steal € 2 billion from banks and cryptocurrency exchanges through a series of cyberattacks to fund its nuclear and missile programs.
The report was written by independent experts to monitor compliance over the past six months and presented to the UN Security Council's North Korean Sanctions Committee last week.
In their report, the experts explained how North Korea "used cyberspace to launch increasingly sophisticated attacks in order to steal funds from financial institutions and exchange cryptocurrencies to generate income." These stolen funds were laundered online to avoid detection.
Many of the cyber-actors behind these attacks operated under the direction of the country's General Survey Office, one of North Korea's main military intelligence services.
North Korean cyberattacks
The experts who wrote the report said they were investigating "at least 35 cases of DPRK actors attacking financial institutions, cryptocurrency trading and mining for currency" in 17 countries.
The reason cybercriminals have targeted cryptocurrency exchanges is because it has allowed them to "generate more difficult-to-locate income and be subject to less stringent supervision and regulation than traditional banking."
When Reuters interviewed a US State Department spokesperson on the UN report, he said: "We call on all responsible states to take action to counter Korea-for-North's ability to carry out malicious cyber activities, generating revenue to support their illegal WMD and ballistic missile programs. "
Sanctions have been imposed on North Korea since 2006 to limit funding for the country's nuclear and ballistic missile programs. It has become increasingly difficult for the country to raise capital, which is why it has probably turned to cybercrime.
Via Reuters