North KoreaA South Korean government official has claimed that a crypto hacking campaign may be impervious to international sanctions.
according to media outlets yonhap tv newsAn unnamed government official based in Seoul said:
“The scale of North Korea’s cybercrime activities shows that the international community’s sanctions against North Korea are being rendered powerless.”
South Korean government sources are quoted as saying that “illegal” North Korean “foreign exchange earnings” amounted to $2.3 billion last year.
At least $700 million of the figure came from large-scale crypto raids, Seoul said, with more crypto “stolen” from “hacking” attacks and phishing on smaller domestic targets.
the fbi has done it before North Korea is accused of plotting the Ronin Bridge attack. agency is banned Ethereum (ETH) It appears that the wallets are linked to the suspected hackers of the bridge.
Seoul also believes that Pyongyang makes money from “illegal exports”.
According to South Korean government officials, North Korea’s “scale of foreign currency imports is the highest it has been since 2018” — the year when “economic sanctions against North Korea were launched in earnest,” the media outlet explained.
Seoul Says Sanctions Aren’t Slowing Down North Korea’s Crypto Hacks
Security providers predicted a “boom” coming earlier this year North Korea crypto hack. And last month, crypto exchanges Binance and Huobi said they had deposited “approximately $1.4 million in cryptocurrency” to wallets “linked to North Korea.”
Security providers and United States government agencies have claimed that North Korean hacking groups such as Lazarus use coin mixing services to anonymize crypto transactions and “launder” crypto.
They claim that some such mixers have closed, while others have Being rebooted or repackaged. They think this is being done to allow criminals to convert their crypto into fiat.
Pyongyang has repeatedly denied that it authorized crypto hacking. North Korea has accused both Washington and Seoul of fabricating reports about its crypto-related activities.