Hacker attacks account for half of North Korea’s budget

North Korea receives about half of its foreign exchange earnings from cyberattacks involving the theft of cryptocurrencies and other types of malicious hacking activity. This was reported by a senior US administration official, adding that cyberattacks on the world’s largest powers increased sharply in 2018, after the country’s nuclear and missile programs began to rapidly develop.

«We are very concerned that cryptocurrency theft and other cyberattacks are a significant source of funding for the regime in Pyongyang. According to our data, about 50% of the DPRK’s foreign currency revenues come from cyberattacks. We are focused on countering this process, so we are working closely with our South Korean allies and other partners around the world,» the official said.

According to South Korea’s intelligence services, there are about 10,000 tech-savvy operatives living in the DPRK alone to support a large-scale campaign of financially motivated cyberattacks. It is also known that thousands of IT professionals travel abroad with forged documents to conduct attacks on the spot.

North Korean hackers have been blamed for some of the largest cryptocurrency thefts in history, including the theft of $ 625 million from the Ronin Sky Mavis network last year and $ 150 million from KuCoin in 2020.