How North Korea’s hackers bankroll its quest for the bomb
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.
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
Foreign Policy
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