North Korean hackers are looting hundreds of millions for nuclear weapons, according to the UN 10 Images of the Cold in the US and Canada

According to the United Nations, North Korea stole more money from cybercrime in the past year than ever before. According to various estimates, at least $630 million or even $1 billion has been stolen from the internet. This shows “that 2022 was a record year for the theft of virtual assets in North Korea,” according to a previously confidential UN expert report that the German news agency has been able to see.

In the past six years, the state hackers are said to have stolen a total of about $ 1.2 billion online. The money, often anonymously invested in cryptocurrency, is then used by the heavily sanctioned country to fund its nuclear and missile programs, which ruler Kim Jong Un has recently moved forward with.

In the meantime, the UN experts see another “significant acceleration” in Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program. Stockpiles of fissile material rose as a result of North Korea’s new nuclear policy and a series of missile launches. Earlier this year, Kim announced an exponential increase in his country’s nuclear arsenal, further escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula.

The UN reported last year that North Korea was preparing for its first nuclear test since 2017. Construction work on the underground Punggye-ri nuclear test facility in the north of the country has recently continued. According to the UN report, Pyongyang has fired at least 73 ballistic missiles in 2022 in violation of UN Security Council resolutions — 42 of them in the last four months of the year. Among them was the test of a new type of solid-fuel rocket.

The cyber attacks in North Korea are attributed, among others, to the state hacker group Lazarus and its subgroups. Increasingly sophisticated ransomware attacks and hacks targeting cryptocurrency marketplaces have been observed. In so-called ransomware attacks, the attackers penetrate the systems, take control and shut out the victims. The data is usually encrypted and only made accessible after payment of a ransom.

According to the UN report, another scam used by hackers is to infect certain organizations active in the crypto business with malware in order to intercept money transfers. “In addition, as part of the campaign, the hacking group registered fake domains impersonating well-known banks and venture capital firms,” it said. North Korea is also trying to steal NFTs (non-fungible tokens) through so-called phishing attacks. With them, digital content can be provided with a non-interchangeable certificate and thus be marked as original, which sometimes leads to enormous increases in value.

With the missile tests and his nuclear program, Kim Jong Un wants to increase the pressure on the world community to lift the sanctions against his country. At the same time, diplomatic relations with the United States have been severed since Kim’s failed second summit with former US President Donald Trump in February 2019. In May, the United States failed the UN Security Council to pass a resolution calling for tougher international sanctions against Pyongyang. Russia and China vetoed the vote in New York. (sda/dpa)