According to South Korea's spy agency, North Korean hackers have stolen over 1.5 trillion won ($1.2 billion) worth of bitcoin and other virtual assets over the previous five years, with more than half occurring this year alone, reported first by AP.
Following severe UN sanctions and the COVID-19 pandemic, experts claim North Korea has resorted to crypto hacking and other illegal cyber to fund its economy and nuclear projects.
UN Sanctions on North Korea
North Korea has allegedly focused on cybercrimes since UN economic sanctions were strengthened in 2017 in response to its nuclear and missile tests, according to South Korea's major spy agency, the National Intelligence Service.
The UN sanctions from 2016 to 2017 forbade North Korea from exporting important goods such as textiles, coal, and many more. It also forced member states to bring home North Koreans who had been working abroad.
According to the NIS, state-backed North Korean hackers are thought to have stolen $1.2 billion ($1.5 trillion) worth of virtual assets worldwide since 2017, with $800 billion ($626 million) this 2022 alone.
NIS claims that those stolen funds came from South Korea worth more than 100 billion won ($78 million).
The spy agency said that North Korean hackers plan to launch additional cyberattacks next year to capture sensitive data on South Korea's national security and cutting-edge technologies.
Senior diplomats from the United States, South Korea, and Japan decided to step up efforts to stop illicit North Korean cyber activity earlier this month, as per AP's report.
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Record Number of Missile Launches
But even if it's impacted by sanctions and the disruptions wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, North Korea has conducted a record number of missile launches in an effort, according to some experts, to upgrade its arsenal.
US authorities earlier claimed that the $615 million hacks on Ronin's blockchain project, which powers the online game Axie Infinity, were the work of a North Korean hacker organization known as the Lazarus Group.
Sanctions watchers estimate that in 2019, the North Korean regime raised an estimated $2 billion through hacking.
According to a study by the Geneva-based International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, North Korea is estimated to spend about $640 million yearly on its nuclear arsenal.
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