North Korean hackers are estimated to have stolen about $1.2 billion worth of cryptocurrencies since 2017. This is evident from a reporting from AP News, citing South Korea’s spy agency. They believe that North Korea is among the best in the world when it comes to stealing crypto.
Sanctions against North Korea
Most experts believe that North Korea is trying to get capital this way because it has few other options because of the sanctions. North Korea is under heavy pressure from sanctions in response to its nuclear and missile tests. According to the South Korean spies, the country is specifically targeting decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms and more than $626 million worth of assets have been stolen this year alone.
Of that amount, according to South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS), about $78 million came from their country. South Korea was exposed to several attacks in 2022 mainly targeting the country’s Web3 infrastructure. The cool thing about Bitcoin and other cryptos is that you can keep them completely in-house.
However, this has the disadvantage that you also have to take care of the security yourself. If the security is not in order and hackers manage to take control of your wallets, the assets are no longer yours. Unfortunately, people worldwide are increasingly finding out about this on a large scale.
Financing nuclear program
According to local news agency Yonhap, North Korea is using the stolen funds to fund its nuclear and missile programs. In February of this year, the United Nations also shared a report that showed that the programs are largely dependent on the revenue from cybercrime.
The US Treasury Department focused this year on the role of Tornado Cash. This is a protocol on Ethereum that makes it possible to cover your tracks on the blockchain. In theory, you can send Ethereum back and forth with a high degree of privacy and possibly convert it into fiat money.
North Korean hackers are said to be using Tornado Cash to clean up their loot. For that reason, Western entities were no longer allowed to interact with wallets that had touched Tornado Cash.