North Korea’s rampant and repeated cyberattacks on financial institutions and cryptocurrency exchanges over the years has generated $2 billion in stolen funds, which the nation allocated toward developing weapons of mass destruction programs, according to a confidential UN document, Reuters reported yesterday.
“Democratic People’s Republic of Korea cyber actors, many operating under the direction of the Reconnaissance General Bureau, raise money for its WMD (weapons of mass destruction) programmes, with total proceeds to date estimated at up to two billion US dollars,” the UN report said, according to Reuters.
The report, which was submitted last week to the Security Council, referred at least 35 instances of North Korean-sponsored cryptomining activity or attacks on financial companies and cryptocurrency exchanges, Reuters reported. The attacks spanned a total of 17 countries and were designed to generate funds the would be hard to trace and elude regulatory oversight, the Reuters report continues.
Reuters says the North Korean mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment on the report.
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APT north korea funded programs stolen cyberattacks
