Security News > 2021 > February > Uncle Sam accuses three suspected North Korean govt hackers of stealing $1.3bn+ from banks, crypto orgs

Three suspected North Korean military intelligence hackers have been charged with, among other things, conspiring to loot more than $1.3bn from banks, ATMs, and cryptocurrency companies, according to an indictment unsealed by the US Department of Justice on Wednesday.

Court documents, filed in the District Court in Los Angeles in December last year and now made public [PDF], claim Park Jin Hyok, 36, Jon Chang Hyok, 31, and Kim Il, 27, were hackers employed by the Reconnaissance General Bureau, a North Korean intelligence agency.

The three men have been charged with a long list of wrongdoing, including the hacking of Sony in 2014 for its film, The Interview, that depicted a fictional assassination of the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. More financially rewarding was their alleged hand in creating the WannaCry ransomware in 2017 that knackered the UK's National Health System and hit businesses from the automotive to banking industries.

British malware-prober Marcus Hutchins famously found and activated the domain-name-based killswitch for the software nasty, halting its spread. The indictment also claimed the suspected Pyongyang cyber-spies pilfered and extorted as much as $1.2bn dollars from banks in Vietnam, Bangladesh, Taiwan, Mexico, Malta, and Africa between 2015 and 2019 by hacking into their computer networks.

It is claimed, siphoned $6.1m from ATMs in Pakistan, targeted digital currency exchanges and trading platforms to pinch $111.7m, and even went as far as inventing their own blockchain and cryptocurrency to enrich the North Korean regime.

"The scope of the criminal conduct by the North Korean hackers was extensive and long-running, and the range of crimes they have committed is staggering," said Acting US Attorney Tracy Wilkison.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2021/02/17/north_korean_hackers/