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North Korean Hackers Hijack Computers To Mine Cryptocurrencies (bloomberg.com)

Posted by msmash on from the one-way-or-another dept.

North Korean hackers are hijacking computers to mine cryptocurrencies as the regime in Pyongyang widens its hunt for cash under tougher international sanctions. From a report: A hacking unit called Andariel seized a server at a South Korean company in the summer of 2017 and used it to mine about 70 Monero coins -- worth about $25,000 as of Dec. 29 -- according to Kwak Kyoung-ju, who leads a hacking analysis team at the South Korean government-backed Financial Security Institute. The case underscores the increasing appetite from cyber-attackers for digital currencies that are becoming a source of income for the Kim Jong Un regime. North Korea is accelerating its pursuit of cash abroad as the world tightens its stranglehold on its conventional sources of money with sanctions cutting oil supplies and other trade bans.

6 of 57 comments (clear)

  1. misspelled by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    You misspelled Russian.

  2. Serious Question by tacokill · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How does a 3rd world country as backward as NK have elite, top of the line, hacking capability? Last I checked, they had a whole 1024 IP addresses for the whole country. There is no high tech industry there and they don't actually produce any computing or software products. I would be highly surprised if they could make a single ASIC, much less a complex and capable CPU on par with Intel/AMD.

    I ask seriously. There are many more technically capable adversaries out there but it's not them who strike successfully yet all of the "bad" hacks I've heard about over the last few years are all being attributed to DPNK

    So how do the norks have such a world class hacking capability in the middle of such a technological backwater? How is that even possible?

    1. Re:Serious Question by JackieBrown · · Score: 2

      How does a 3rd world country as backward as NK have elite, top of the line, hacking capability? Last I checked, they had a whole 1024 IP addresses for the whole country. T

      They switched to IPV6 ;)

    2. Re:Serious Question by Zocalo · · Score: 2

      Probably the same reason why they can have a nuclear weapons programme; their priorities over where to spend their miniscule GDP are completely and utterly fscked up. They do send a few of their most trusted elites overseas to study, but mostly I suspect it's down to the black market and envelopes stuffed with used notes. Just as there were a lot of Soviet weapons scientists ready to fly to Pyongyang rather than face poverty after the USSR collapsed, there are almost certainly lot of black hats willing to train the appointed NORKs in the darker side of cracking.

      There's also the useful idiot / scapegoat angle, of course. A government that has trained the DPRK's hackers and an understanding of the way the DPRK operates essentially has a deniable cyberweapon they can point wherever they want just by leaking some appropriate data on the target. It's not hard to think of a few countries that might consider that black budget money well spent.

      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
  3. Propaganda. Yawn. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A few years ago it was always Syrian Electronic Army. Now it's always North Korea and Russia. Lol

  4. So sick of Bitcoin by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 2

    When will this worthless shit crash already? It's a complete failure as a currency. All it's accomplished for the world is to facilitate trafficking in drugs, weapons, and humans, and to reward people who waste electricity. Yes, everyone accepts it as payment. Because it's undergoing a bubble. But no one wants to pay for stuff with it. Because it's undergoing a bubble.

    For a currency to be usable, it needs to maintain a stable value. Bitcoin fails miserably at it. Nerds seem to get intrigued by its algorithm and lose sight of human nature- people won't trust it once they get burned by the crash that's being dismissed as an inevitable "short-term correction". (And that's more acceptable than a long-term correction... why?) Sure, you'll forget you were a "billionaire" when you went to bed last night and you'll buy pizza with your Bitcoins for lunch- except no pizzeria will accept them after that. But rest assured, there is a distributed blockchain uncontrolled by any central authority that establishes beyond all doubt that you are the proud owner of a worthless currency.

    Bitcoin has made one thing perfectly clear- so-called "fiat money" is the worst kind of currency except for all the others.