Cyberspying by North Korea goes beyond cryptocurrency
Cyberspying by North Korea goes beyond cryptocurrency:
A new report from a cyber-intelligence company challenges the idea that North Korean hackers only commit cybercrimes and cryptocurrency heists for money. Instead, the report reveals that cyber-espionage and information collection are their primary focuses.
What took place: Foreign Policy reports that Recorded Future's report says that North Korea's cyberespionage operations outweigh its financially motivated cybercrimes. In addition to carrying out high-profile cryptocurrency heists, the report highlights North Korea's focus on information collection and the targeting of government agencies as well as neighboring Asian nations.
Recorded Future looked at 273 cyberattacks that were linked to North Korean state-sponsored groups over the course of 14 years. The pursuit of information rather than financial gain was the motivation behind over 70% of these attacks.
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Foreign Policy quoted Mitch Haszard, the report's lead author and senior threat intelligence analyst at Recorded Future, as saying, "What this report shows is that they're still heavily focused on information collection, or cyber-espionage, and they conduct more of those operations than they do financially motivated or financial theft operations."
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The report sheds light on Pyongyang's goals, highlighting its desire to gain "access to information on technologies" that could be advantageous in potential conflicts and "insight into how its adversaries think." Cryptocurrency exchanges, media outlets, financial institutions, defense institutions, and nongovernmental organizations are the next most common targets.
But North Korea stands out because it uses cyber operations as a crucial means of funding its nuclear arsenal. This fascination with cryptocurrency is what sets it apart. According to Anne Neuberger, deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology for President Joe Biden, cryptocurrency and cyberheists finance approximately half of the regime's missile program.
Haszard was quoted as saying, "There aren't really any other states or countries that are trying to steal cryptocurrency. Therefore, North Korea is unique from that perspective. However, they still do a lot of things that other states do."
Despite the fact that North Korean hackers have been blamed for cryptocurrency heists, Haszard and his colleagues discovered that the majority of their cyberactivity was focused on local targets. South Korea was the primary target of almost 80% of the attacks, accounting for over 65% of the attacks among the 29 countries targeted. With 8.5%, the United States came in a distant second.
The infamous hacking group Lazarus primarily targets global entities in North Korea's cyber operations. However, the group known as Kimsuky, which targets Asian government and civil society organizations, is the most common perpetrator of cyberattacks. Multiple law enforcement agencies in the United States say that the hackers frequently take on the persona of South Korean journalists, luring targets with the promise of interviews and infecting their devices with malware.
What It Means: Concerns about the intentions and capabilities of North Korea in cyberspace are raised by their shift toward cyberespionage and information collection. According to the report, North Korea, on the other hand, has demonstrated a lower propensity to engage in large-scale disruptive attacks on critical infrastructure or ransomware campaigns compared to other cyber-capable adversaries like China and Russia.
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