Unclassified data from the United Nations shows that cybercriminals working out of North Korea stole more digital assets than any other year in 2022.
According to Reuters the UN report was sent to a committee of 15 people who is responsible for imposing sanctions against North Korea a week ago.
After cyberattacks on international aerospace and military companies’ computer networks, it was found that hackers linked to North Korea were responsible in 2017 for the theft of $630 million to $1 billion of crypto assets.
According to research by the United Nations, cyber attacks are more sophisticated than ever before. This makes it harder than ever to recover stolen funds.
In their report to United Nations Security Council Committee, the independent monitors of sanctions stated that they “…[North Korea] They used increasingly sophisticated cyber techniques to access cyber networks that are involved in cyber finance as well as to steal information of value, including information about its weapons programs.
Chainalysis published a similar report last week on February 1. This report states that North Korean hackers stole at least $1.7 billion of cryptocurrency in 2022. It is the worst year for crypto hacking.
According to the company the cybercriminal networks have been the most productive bitcoin hackers in the past few years.
Chainalysis states that North Korea’s entire 2020 exports were $142million worth of products. It is therefore not difficult to argue that hacking crypto currencies is a major part of its economy.
Chainalysis estimates that at least $1.1 Billion of the stolen wealth was obtained through hacks of decentralized financial protocols. This shows that North Korea is one of the main drivers of the hacking trend in decentralized financial protocols, which accelerated in 2022.
It was also discovered by the company that hackers with North Korean ties often transfer large amounts of money to mixers such as Sinbad and Tornado Cash.
Chainalysis claims that the speed at which assets are stolen by other people or organizations is much lower than the speed at which funds are stolen by hackers connected to North Korea.
Although North Korea has denied any allegations of being responsible for cyberattacks, the UN report asserts that its primary intelligence bureau, Reconnaissance General Bureau (North Korea), uses several groups like Kimsuky and Lazarus Group specifically for this purpose.
The United Nations published a report that stated, “These actors continued to illicitly attack victims in order to make income and solicit information of worth to the DPRK’s weapons programs.”
Last week, the complete report was presented to North Korea’s sanctions committee. It is made up of 15 members. Recent reports indicate that the report will probably be released sometime this month or early March.
