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North Korea Amassed Cryptocurrency Through Hacking, Says UN Panel (nikkei.com)

Posted by msmash on from the growing-concern dept.

North Korea has used cyberattacks and blockchain technology to circumvent economic sanctions and obtain foreign currency, according to a panel of experts reporting to the U.N. Security Council. From a report: Pyongyang has amassed around $670 million in foreign and virtual currency through cyberthefts, using blockchain technology to cover its tracks, the panel told the Security Council's North Korea sanctions committee in its annual report, Nikkei has learned. It is the first time the panel has given details on how North Korea obtains foreign currency through cyberattacks. In its report, the panel recommended that member states "enhance their ability to facilitate robust information exchange on the cyberattacks by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea with other governments and with their own financial institutions," to detect and prevent attempts by North Korea to evade sanctions. The full report obtained by Nikkei, which has been approved by Security Council members for publication next week, says North Korea waged cyberattacks on overseas financial institutions from 2015 to 2018.

49 comments

  1. "using blockchain technology to cover its tracks" by OneOfMany07 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't think those words mean what you think they mean.

  2. Props to them! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Power to the people!

  3. It works fine for money laundering by rsilvergun · · Score: 2

    there's sites that'll do it for you and take a percentage. You can trace the chain of events, but you won't be able to put names to it. Eventually you cash it out for hard cash somewhere and viola, clean money.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:It works fine for money laundering by Mashiki · · Score: 2

      Too difficult for most criminal enterprises still. Most use tangible assets like vehicles or real estate in order to launder money. Three hot spots in the world for it right now: Vancouver, Canada. Brisbane, Australia, and San Francisco, USA.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    2. Re:It works fine for money laundering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The only reason that works is because no-one have been serious about hunting bitcoins down.

      What happens is the same thing as with regular money laundering, some other bastard will end up with the bitcoins you are looking for.

      Except that unlike regular money it is very easy to set up a database of bitcoins that have been involved in illegal activity.
      Slap on a law that requires any trader to check coins against that database and suddenly anyone getting coins from a sketchy trader will find that they get coins they can't use for anything.
      Even the drug dealer won't take them because he can't trade them for something legit.
      The bitcoin launderer won't be able to operate if not clean coins keeps flowing through.

      Bitcoins aren't untraceable and it is perfectly possible to regulate them.
      It's just that legislation tends to be a couple of decades behind.

    3. Re: It works fine for money laundering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So you plan to kill yourself? Sure, go for it buddy!

    4. Re:It works fine for money laundering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That'll never happen. Which nation do we allow to say what coins are used illegally?

      It's legal to SAY things in the USA that are ILLEGAL TO SAY in the UK. The illegal act could be supporting someone the state says is guilty of thought crimes -- i.e., "hate speech". This is just one extreme example. Criticizing China is illegal in China. Look in your post history and see that you're probably an enemy of the state to some state.

      Only idiots believe bitcoin should be regulated as you propose. If I can trade them for currency in one nation on earth, then I can change them back into a new account and keep on trucking, fool.

    5. Re:It works fine for money laundering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Bitcoin basically falls under Chinese laws as it is Chinese controlled. China has the power to shutdown, destroy or determine what is and isn't legal in bitcoin at any point in time.

    6. Re: It works fine for money laundering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      San Francisco - the social just-us nazi capital of America - is a hotspot for Chinese money laundering? Unpossible!!

    7. Re: It works fine for money laundering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      fuck off you god damn retarded faggot stop sucking Putin's cock for vodka

    8. Re: It works fine for money laundering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unlike you, mr weak ass cut n paste troll, I live in SF. Truth hurts. SF is a cess pit of crime. It is what happens when ultra leftists have unbridled government power. Always does. SF. Detroit. Chicago. LA. Caracas. Philadelphia. Boston. And so on. How many cities controlled by non ultra leftists have collapsed into unbearable levels of filth, crime and mass government corruption? Name a few. Good luck, kiddo. Maybe ask your zero-real-world-knowledge Marxist professors who feed your tiny brain all that socialist clap trap. They will get angry and deflect and then fail you.

  4. Theft isn't good by PPH · · Score: 1, Insightful

    But what do you expect them to resort to when they don't have their own Federal Reserve that can create money out of thin air?

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
    1. Re: Theft isn't good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is fake news. We all know that DA BLOKCHEIN is unbreakable.

    2. Re: Theft isn't good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      How did this get to +3 Insightful? Pyongyang can print as much money as they want to. They even have equipment to print US dollars, which they frequently do.

    3. Re:Theft isn't good by Solandri · · Score: 2

      The amount of money a government can create "out of thin air" is limited by the productivity of the country. That's why the U.S, Germany, UK, etc. have been able to go into heavy deficit spending without serious economic consequences - they're still keeping government spending to a relatively small percentage of total GDP. But once the government starts creating more money than the country's productivity, the economy responds by devaluing the currency (basically lowering the value of the currency to keep spending equal to or less than productivity). That's what's crippled Venezuela's Bolivar - the socialist government there keeps trying to hand out more value in services than their economy is producing, resulting in massive inflation.

      North Korea is in a situation similar to Venezuela. They have very little domestic productivity (and the largest chunk of it is put into the military). The only realistic way they can make more money (aside from ditching their system of government, which is unlikely to happen), is to steal it.

    4. Re:Theft isn't good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But what do you expect them to resort to when they don't have their own Federal Reserve that can create money out of thin air?

      Hmm. I wonder where they steal their money from?

    5. Re: Theft isn't good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


      The amount of money a government can create "out of thin air" is limited by the productivity of the country.

      No, it is limited by the degree of control over the financial markets, productivity has jackshit to do with it.

    6. Re:Theft isn't good by SuricouRaven · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Creating money in that manner is a powerful economic tool, but one which can go horribly wrong if not used with caution. If simply issuing currency worked all the time then there would be no need for taxation - and you can be sure that would be a popular political position to take. The problem is inflation: The more the currency is circulating, and less each individual unit is worth. Too much entering circulation not only means the value falls steadily, but can spark a crisis of confidence: If everyone sees their money falling in value then they want to get rid of it, which means it becomes even less valuable, so people try even harder to get rid of it, so the value falls... eventually the cycle reaches the dreaded hyperinflation stage, and you start to see people using wheelbarrows full of currency to buy their groceries and wiping their ass on trillion-dollar bills that are now worth less than toilet paper.

    7. Re:Theft isn't good by _merlin · · Score: 2

      The US has the advantage of being able to inflate their problems onto the rest of the world, because the US dollar is the de facto global reserve currency for trading oil and gold. Hong Kong banks must keep US dollar reserves to issue banknotes. Until relatively recently, the US dollar was the only currency that could be directly converted to/from Chinese currency.

      This started after the second world war, when the US had the strongest economic position, and was the biggest consumer. People also trusted the US government not to default on the gold standard, although that trust ultimately proved to be unfounded. But by the time the US defaulted on the gold standard, the US dollar was well established as necessary for trading oil.

      Other governments need to walk a far finer line than the US when issuing debt and printing money because their currencies aren't seen as having inherent value globally.

    8. Re:Theft isn't good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      North Korean money is surprisingly stable, won to USD exchange rate is pretty flat since early 2013 (which is the beginning of the Byungjin era)

      http://www.nkeconwatch.com/2018/09/13/explaining-north-koreas-exchange-rate-stability-its-all-about-the-companies/
      https://apnews.com/b444605eb272400081922a4ec8231be3

      My guess is, they do whatever they want with their own central bank so they can afford to pull this off if they want to. Unlike Venezuela they don't exactly rely on exports. Living standards can be kept very low e.g. everyone walks to their job and leisure when they get time off consists in singing and dancing in parks or with neighbors and they rejoice when eating an egg. Also those privileged to have a bathtub seem to think not for bathing but for storing water. Like, in their 20+-story buildings they get water pressure for an hour in the morning so you'd rather store in a tub, sink or bowls than have to climb down and up 20 flights of stairs to go fetch it. If you're in a poor area you might even have to fetch your water outside anyway but at least you won't have to bring it up to the 20th floor.

    9. Re:Theft isn't good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In the post 2007/2008 world we face deflation and the Quantitative Easings are a powerful drug that stave it off.. until they're needed again and we need a bigger intravenous injection dose. We've not yet needed to invest in wheelbarrow companies.
      I wonder how this works. Are there endless trillions upon trillions hoarded by the rich and circulated into the financial sphere? Huge amounts of money, but as it seldom goes into real world economy there's little inflation. When shit hits the fan, circulation of money stops so even less of it goes into the real world so we have liquidity shortages and deflation. Trillions are printed, seemingly disappear into a hole then we're back to normal sort of.

      This might be an amazing system.. though I get to think those at the top of the top are doing really fine there. Oh noes I am a billionaire and I have a 20 billion paper loss. Well, these people and companies get to buy all the "crumbs" on the cheap. Homes, real world companies, arable land, airports, media, Greek islands. We might be in for something spectacular with the 2019/2020 crisis but it'll take another one with geopolitical end of the US dollar to bring the house down.

    10. Re:Theft isn't good by dk20 · · Score: 1

      Until relatively recently, the US dollar was the only currency that could be directly converted to/from Chinese currency.

      Citation? I remember bringing Canadian Cash and Canadian Dollar cheques drawn on Canadiian banks to the Bank of China (actually in China) and buying RMB like 15 years ago.

    11. Re:Theft isn't good by PPH · · Score: 1

      I wonder where they steal their money from?

      Your children.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    12. Re:Theft isn't good by _merlin · · Score: 1

      When you do that, Bank of China handles the details for you. They have CNY and USD reserves on hand, and when necessary they'll convert USD/CAD and USD/CNY to keep things in order. The first additional currency that they allowed to be converted directly to/from CNY was JPY about ten years ago. After that they added GBP and AUD. You kinda can convert HKD directly under certain circumstances, but you've got the whole weirdness with the Hong Kong banks being required to hold USD reserves to issue banknotes (HSBC, Standard Chartered, Bank of China, etc.) so USD is still involved.

    13. Re:Theft isn't good by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      The hoarding is, strangely, the opposite of hoarding - thanks to a bit of financial trickery called fractional reserve. Actual 'money' is a tiny amount of the money in circulation: It's almost all transfer of debt, tracked in meticulous detail. You take out a loan, you owe the bank money - then you put it into your bank account, which records how much they owe you. They then use that money - or rather, the debt to you - to fund more loans, to people who put it into their own accounts... and so on. A bank owes and is owed vast amounts of money that dwarf the actual amount of currency they have to hand.

      It also means there is a small chance that, if a bank goes out of business, everyone who has a savings account with that bank will see their life's savings vanish through no fault of their own. It's highly unlikely, but it has happened - and is the reason that governments will shovel giant mountains of taxpayer money into a failing bank to make sure it doesn't happen again.

  5. Nevermind that! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    We'll just say it involved hacking! Because hacking! Hacks! Hackers! You're now fully informed of all the relevant information and detail available.

    Welcome to the daily drivel, with msmash and the other "editors" on the new new new slashdot!

  6. H@ck50Rex by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I canâ(TM)t believe this well written article. Itâ(TM)s ikely as per TFA that

    block chain was used to subnet there ip useing qBitâ(TM)s with ssl encryption. This short of thing is done in chain all the time

    We need congress to build a firewall otherwise weapons like the bot nets maleahere and zero days will make the internet not safe

    -_-

  7. No, they didn't, here's why by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They can't even find out who did all the other big heists or thefts, so how would they so easily be able to determine that North Korea has somehow carried out multiple thefts? This thing stinks.

    America wants to throw spanners in the works to prevent unification of the Korean isle, because it would ultimately prevent them from selling weapons and stationing their own military there. America seeds its made up "reports" and lies and pressures people in the UN panel to deliver a verdict that furthers the American agenda.

    1. Re: No, they didn't, here's why by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      North Korea: what is ours is ours and what is yours is ours. Also you stupid Chinese and Americans have ugly cars and whistly noses and your bones will decorate our landscape. We calculated that this statement will endear us to you because we are irretrievably stupid.

    2. Re: No, they didn't, here's why by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Idiot. The US spends way more money on SK defense than she makes selling weapons to SK.

      Where do you America hating dumbasses get your facts? Oh, right, no facts necessary. Just post whatever lies your tiny little brain hopes no one will bother calling you out on.

      NK, yet another clear sign of successful socialism in action.

    3. Re: No, they didn't, here's why by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are powerful interests that absolutely love US treasury (money from tax payers) being spent on weapons and the military and contractors.

      Mainstream media reports in US and Europe may be an indication of this when they - all of them - peddle articles that this is hopeless, the US will gain nothing, NK will never give in to anything, Trump is being played, Trump is a Russian traitor who is pissing on US allies etc.

      Nonetheless there is quite a historic chance to sort this situation out - a seven-decade war that is going nowhere anyway.
      Maybe even the assholes are seeing this. America is stretched too thin on the planet and hilariously failed at triggering a "humanitarian" war in Venezuela.

  8. Re:"using blockchain technology to cover its track by AHuxley · · Score: 2

    Why would any gov touch blockchain technology knowing the NSA was all over it early on?
    The "tracking down" using OAKSTAR and MONKEYROCKET.
    https://theintercept.com/2018/... (March 21 2018)
    Every movement is known to the USA making the gathering, keeping and later sale of anything blockchain a trap.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  9. I gather the UN doesn't like bitcoin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Cryptocurrency is an end around on Central banking controls. I can see why the UN might take a dim view of anyone who uses it. So I find it hard to be objective about their findings.

  10. Oh Noes ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Dont be so rude to this commie kid !!!!

    He and his family have spent 300k Dollars on his education in "critical cultural analysis of the Linux sociology". Now he rightfully expects that some of that education was not wasted. Please make sure his wake-up phase is not too fast.

  11. How Do You Know ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    NK is one big secret society. Nobody can force them to report their actual wealth, their actual production numbers. They can claim 10 Units when in fact they make 10000.

    Their leader seems to be nicely educated in Switzerland and according to what transpires out of NK, they are definitely not as poor as the mainstream media liars want us to believe.

    Most likely NK has latched on the Chinese and SK success and are quite productive. Some people (close to the leader and controlling factories) are probably already super rich.

    1. Re:How Do You Know ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xs--To414I

    2. Re:How Do You Know ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I propose this short music video (instrumental)
      https://invidio.us/watch?v=gLAsSW6FOh0

      They don't play this anymore, that's when the band was fairly new.
      This is a good example of how far economic propaganda may go, the song seems to tell a story of its own even without the lyrics.
      Beauty of totalitarianism maybe? If they are totalitarian the totalitarian system includes the beauty and best moving aspects of existence and the world.

  12. UNLIKE Venezuela by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    NK is not run by Dumb White People. Like DW Germans or DW Latinos.

    The yellow man by now at least knows how to lie and cheat his way to the top. DW people know how they can protest, complain and write endlessly. Yellow men meanwhile outwork the DWP in their factories.

  13. Easier than printing it? by thunderclees · · Score: 1

    There is evidence that both the PRC and DPRK were counterfeiting US currency.

  14. Birth Certificate isnt thin air by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    a monetized alter ego known occupationally as a perpresture, made so to avoid the local and state and feudal/federal governments as a hunan traficking and human chattel organization.

    if your own worth is negotiable, you decide whom to be a crimal and slave from time to time outside the first Coinage Act even in competition with other similar Casino Gaming Tokens deprived of Internal Revenue Code 83(a).

  15. How? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How the hell can NK have all teh good hackers? Western countries literally created the Internet and continually hoover up all the top talent from around the world with big salaries. Did we all get fat and lazy? NK must be about 189 out of 189 in the world in resources, education, no. of PhDs, quality of life, quantity of food. Real basic problems there... and yet they can hack us?

  16. Re:"using blockchain technology to cover its track by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't think those words mean what you think they mean.

    Read this some time back. Last year alone, exchange hacks cost upward of 850 Million$+. Mostly North Koreans are behind this.