Kim Jong Un’s cash-strapped communist autocracy is ruthlessly trawling the web to loot, steal, and – most importantly – find ways to advance Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program. Robbie Gramer and Rishi Ivengar Apr 26, 2023 https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-...nkroll-its-quest-for-the-bomb-20230419-p5d1rl For at least five years a shadowy group of hackers has been waging a quiet campaign to harvest sensitive data from government agencies, academics, and think tanks in the US and South Korea, all while stealing and laundering cryptocurrency on the side. That group, dubbed APT43, was outed as a likely proxy for North Korean intelligence services late last month by cybersecurity firm Mandiant, a revelation that unnerved, but didn’t surprise, policymakers in Washington and its allies in Asia. North Korea is stubbornly expanding its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, even as its economy teeters on the brink of collapse. AP APT43 and other groups like it represent the new face of North Korea in the digital age. It is at once a closed-off communist autocracy that is cash-strapped, impoverished and more isolated than ever before, while also being tech savvy, entrepreneurial and ruthlessly adept at trawling the web to loot, steal, and – most importantly – find ways to advance its nuclear weapons program. In short, Pyongyang has deployed an army of hackers to bankroll its quest for the bomb. “North Korea’s illicit cyber activities are really gaining traction,” says Ellen Kim, an expert on Korea at the US’s Centre for Strategic and International Studies think tank. “They used to use their cyber capabilities to attack South Korean government departments, but now they’ve really shifted their focus to international banks and infrastructure in other countries.” The trend represents an alarming new threat for Washington and its Asian allies as North Korea stubbornly expands its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, even as its economy teeters on the brink of collapse after three years of a draconian, self-imposed lockdown to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. “While North Korea is often viewed by many in the West as economically backward and a so-called hermit kingdom, its capabilities to do real harm to governments, enterprises, and even individuals through its activities in cyberspace should not be underestimated,” says Jon Condra, an expert at the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, centre, with his daughter, inspect the test-launch of Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile on April 13. AP The nexus of North Korea’s cyber crimes and its nuclear program add a new and dangerous layer of complexity to the Biden administration’s efforts to denuclearise the Korean Peninsula – an initiative that has sputtered and stalled for years due to North Korea’s refusal to pick up the phone. On April 14 Pyongyang announced it had tested a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time, another critical breakthrough in its quest to build a nuclear arsenal that could potentially target the continental US. The announcement is expected to ramp up pressure on Western governments to find new ways to cut off North Korea’s illicit sources of revenue abroad, including through cybercrime, in a bid to stymie its weapons programs as much as possible. This new trend of Pyongyang blending its cybercrime and nuclear aims poses a big headache for Washington’s national security apparatus, where nuclear policy, sanctions enforcement and cybersecurity policies are run by different agencies with vastly different expertise and which don’t naturally operate in tandem. The US government has worked to thwart North Korea’s access to cryptocurrency, sanctioning cryptocurrency “mixer” firms that obscure the owners of crypto assets and directly sanctioning North Korean state-sponsored hacking groups. Cryptocurrencies have proved to be powerful tools for evading sanctions, as transactions are exchanged through encrypted transfers and aren’t processed by commercial banks. They are also much more vulnerable to cyberattacks than traditional banking infrastructure, making cryptocurrency reserves a ripe target of opportunity for North Korean hackers. “Coupled with the unregulated and vulnerable nature of decentralised finance (DeFi) protocols and organisations, the cryptocurrency sector is a high-value target,” Saher Naumaan, an analyst at BAE Systems Digital Intelligence who researches state-sponsored cyber operations, wrote in a recent blog post for the US’s Council on Foreign Relations think tank. Cybercrime has proved to be a windfall, at least by North Korean standards, for the regime. A UN report by independent sanctions monitors estimated that hackers linked to the regime stole between $US630 million ($940 million) and more than $US1 billion in cryptocurrencies in 2022, amounting to record-setting figures and a comparatively large haul for a country with an estimated GDP of just $US28 billion in 2016. Blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis, in a separate report, put the number even higher at $US1.7 billion. And as sanctions enforcement blocks many traditional forms of generating revenue – including arms sales and limited commodity exports – Pyongyang is increasingly relying on cybercrime to fill its coffers. North Korea is considered the most isolated country in the world, making it difficult to estimate both how much it spends (or even has to spend) on propping up its cyber criminals, and just how it spends the funds that its army of hackers manages to steal. What little information Western governments had been able to glean has been effectively cut off for the past three years, due to North Korea’s self-imposed pandemic lockdown that has blocked all Western diplomats from re-entering the country and reopening their embassies. (The US doesn’t have an embassy in Pyongyang, but some of its European allies, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden and the Czech Republic, do.) Pyongyang’s lack of economic heft and access to global markets make it likely that North Korea’s nuclear program is a big beneficiary of the regime’s cybercrime activities. Still, the regime’s broad ambition to gain a credible nuclear program has been clear for years, allowing experts and Western governments to piece together the big picture of where Pyongyang’s ill-gotten gains are going. “It is hard to say exactly where stolen funds from the compromises of cryptocurrency exchanges or banks end up being invested in North Korea, but it is a reasonable assumption that a good portion is allocated to the government’s various military initiatives, including its nuclear program,” Condra says. That program is “notoriously expensive, and given Pyongyang’s lack of economic heft and access to global markets due to sanctions, it is likely that the nuclear program is a major beneficiary of the regime’s cybercriminal activities.” The case of APT43 sheds new light on how North Korea has deployed its army of cybercriminals to advance its national security goals and not just rake in money for the cash-strapped government. The group’s “focus on foreign policy and nuclear security issues supports North Korea’s strategic and nuclear ambitions,” according to the report from Mandiant. (In 2021 the APT43 group also focused on gathering health-related intelligence, likely in response to what is suspected to be a deadly wave of COVID infections across North Korea, showing its ability to quickly pivot to new priorities for Pyongyang.) The group targeted government agencies and research institutes in South Korea, the US, Japan, and Europe focused on geopolitical and nuclear policies, while maintaining a mercenary bent of stealing money when and where it could. “We consider cyber espionage to be the primary mission for APT43 and available data indicates that the group’s other activities are carried out to support collecting strategic intelligence,” Mandiant researchers wrote in their report. “The actors regularly update lure content and tailor it to the specific target audience, particularly around nuclear security and non-proliferation,” the report added, and all while “carrying out financially motivated cybercrime as needed to support the regime.” Earlier this month, the top US, Japanese, and South Korean envoys overseeing North Korea policy met in Seoul to discuss the growing threat from North Korea’s nuclear program. They issued a joint statement saying they were “deeply concerned” about how North Korea supported its weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs “by stealing and laundering funds as well as gathering information through malicious cyber activities.” The flurry of diplomatic meetings and sanctions, however, is unlikely to curb North Korea’s cybercrime any time soon. “North Korean threat actors are increasingly clever in their approaches to operations, and if tasked to pursue a particular set of targets, they are likely to have some success just based on their persistence and resourcing,” Condra says.
At the same time, there are western companies evading sanctions and selling products to North Korea. Now some of them are being held accountable. BAT to Pay $635 Million to US Over North Korea Sanctions https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...doj-deal-for-north-korea-activities#xj4y7vzkg Cigarette maker disguised sales in North Korea, US says Company entered deferred-prosecution agreement with US Cigarette maker British American Tobacco plc agreed to pay $635.2 million to US authorities to resolve investigations into sanctions violations for selling products in North Korea and misleading banks about the source of those sales. Lawyers for the UK company appeared Tuesday in Washington federal court, where the US Department of Justice agreed to defer prosecution of BAT in exchange for promised reforms. A Singapore subsidiary of BAT also pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and conspiracy to violate sanctions.
OP's article IMO is total bullshit. To build a nuclear program is not cheap, the hackers can't download a warhead onto a tubl drive and set it off. All the people in the know knew it was the Russians who bankrolled it.
North Korea has always been on this type of bullshit. They are the biggest counterfeiters of US currency in the world. The N Koreas even hold the world record for single incident auto theft when they ordered 1000 Volvos , received them and didn’t pay.
But these small sums could not afford even one nuclear warhead, so my guess is that North Korea coverage from CNN to FOX may not be all true. Cybercrime has proved to be a windfall, at least by North Korean standards, for the regime. A UN report by independent sanctions monitors estimated that hackers linked to the regime stole between $US630 million ($940 million) and more than $US1 billion in cryptocurrencies in 2022, amounting to record-setting figures and a comparatively large haul for a country with an estimated GDP of just $US28 billion in 2016.
it's part of the "crypto is a national security concern" fed angle as of late. N.Korea is a vassal state, if they need a nuke, they just need to pick up the phone.
Leaders of S. Korea, US announce Washington Declaration Posted on : Apr.27,2023 https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/1089672.html In sum, the two leaders agreed to no deployment of US tactical nukes, regular deployment of US strategic assets, and more consultations on chips President Yoon Suk-yeol of South Korea speaks at a joint press conference with US President Joe Biden on April 26 (local time) in the White House Rose Garden. (Yonhap) Following their summit in the US capital on Wednesday, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and US President Joe Biden adopted the Washington Declaration, which includes plans for stronger joint extended deterrence against North Korean nuclear and missile threats. The two leaders also agreed on the establishment of a new Nuclear Consultative Group to oversee the information sharing and joint planning and execution for extended deterrence. In a joint post-summit press conference with Biden at the White House Rose Garden, Yoon said the two had “decided to significantly strengthen extended deterrence of our two countries against North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats so that we can achieve peace through the superiority of overwhelming forces and not a false peace based on the goodwill of the other side.” “Such a will and commitment is captured in the Washington Declaration,” he continued The Washington Declaration is a separate document from the joint statement, marking the first time a separate document on extended deterrence was adopted by the leaders of the two countries. “Our two countries have agreed to immediate bilateral presidential consultations in the event of North Korea’s nuclear attack and promised to respond swiftly, overwhelmingly, and decisively using the full force of the alliance including the United States’ nuclear weapons,” Yoon told reporters at the press conference. Regarding the NCG, Yoon said the goal was to “customize our response against North Korea’s nuclear threat based on extended deterrence.” “Now our two countries will share information on nuclear and strategic weapon operations plans in response to North Korea’s provocations and have regular consultations on ways to plan and execute joint operations that combine Korea’s state-of-the-art conventional forces with the US’ nuclear capabilities, the results of which will be reported to the leaders of our two countries on a regular basis,” Yoon continued. Biden also made remarks about the security situation on the peninsula, saying that a nuclear attack by North Korea against the US or its partners would be “unacceptable” and “will result in the end of whatever regime” were to take such an action. The two leaders also agreed to further advance tabletop exercises in preparation for a potential nuclear crisis and “constantly and routinely” deploy US strategic assets to the Korean Peninsula. Regarding the NCG, Biden said that although he has the sole authority to authorize the use of nuclear weapons as commander-in-chief, the US will “make every effort to consult with our allies when it’s appropriate if any actions are so called for.” Biden also made clear that the US will not be stationing nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula but would continue with port visits of nuclear submarines. In addition, the two leaders agreed to begin discussions about expanding the alliance into cyber and space by applying their mutual defense pact to these fields. To this end, Yoon and Biden announced the establishment of “a dialogue for next-generation emerging and core technology between the U.S. National Security Council and the Korea Office of National Security” and the adoption of the “Strategic Cybersecurity Cooperation Framework.” Besides this, the two leaders also adopted a separate joint statement on the identification of an American soldier killed in the Korean War. Regarding economic issues, both the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the CHIPS and Science Act were on the agenda at the summit, given domestic concerns regarding the laws harming South Korean companies. Despite the importance of the issue, however, the joint statement merely glossed over the topic, simply stating that the two leaders “committed to continue close consultations with a view to ensuring those Acts encourage mutually beneficial corporate investment in the United States by creating predictable conditions for business activities.” The two leaders also reaffirmed their continued support for Ukraine. “Both countries have responded resolutely to Russia’s clear violations of international law by promoting accountability through sanctions and export control measures, and we are continuing to support Ukraine through the vital provision of political, security, humanitarian, and economic assistance, including to increase power generation and transmission and rebuild critical infrastructure,” the statement read. Although the provision of lethal aid was not directly mentioned, the possibility was not ruled out either. The joint statement also voiced support for the improvement of South Korea-Japan relations. “President Biden welcomed President Yoon’s bold steps toward improving ROK-Japan relations and extended strong support for expanding ROK-Japan collaboration, which opens the door to deeper trilateral cooperation on regional and economic security,” the statement read. By Kim Mi-na, staff reporter; Lee Bon-young, Washington correspondent