South Korea has slapped its aggressive northern neighbor with a volley of sanctions related to the former's cryptocurrency crimes, the Korea Times reports.
This marked the country's first time it imposed independent sanctions on North Korea in the realm of cyber activity.
The list of sanctioned individuals includes Park Jin Hyok, a state-sponsored North Korean computer programmer involved in the hacking of Sony Entertainment Pictures, and other notorious hackers.
Lazarus Group, a government-linked cybercrime collective, as well as BlueNoroff, a Lazarus subgroup, are among the malicious entities targeted by the group.
Yuri MolchanBlockchain sleuth Chainalysis recently determined that North Korean hackers were actually responsible for the vast majority of crypto hacking activity in 2022. Last year, a record-breaking $3.8 billion worth of crypto was lost to cybercriminals, with decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols accounting for the vast majority of the sum.
As reported by U.Today, the U.S. government determined that the North Korean government was behind the massive Ronin Network hack, which netted its hackers more than $600 million.
Last October, Japan's National Police Agency warned that several Japanese cryptocurrency exchanges had fallen victim to cyberattacks orchestrated by the notorious Lazarus Group. North Korean cybercriminals were targeting the employees of these exchanges with bogus emails.
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Dan Burgin
Vladislav Sopov