Former CIA analyst Soo Kim said, “Even though the tradecraft is not perfect right now… it’s still a fresh market for North Korea.”.
As the country battles, prolonged economic sanctions, and resource shortages North Korea-backed cyberattacks on crypto and tech firms will only become more sophisticated over time.
Former CIA analyst Soo Kim said to CNN on July 10 that the procedure of producing overseas crypto income for the regime has now become a “way of life” for the North Koreans.
“In light of the challenges that the regime is facing — food shortages, fewer countries willing to engage with North Korea […] this is just going to be something that they will continue to use because nobody is holding them back, essentially.”
She added that it is likely that their crypto-attacking “tradecraft” will only advance from here on.
Kim claimed, “Even though the tradecraft is not perfect right now, in terms of their ways of approaching foreigners and preying upon their vulnerabilities, it’s still a fresh market for North Korea.”
The RAND Corporation policy analyst made the comments almost two months after the release of a joint advisory from the United States government about the penetration of North Korean operatives across freelance tech jobs — posing risks of intellectual property, data, and funds theft that could be used to encroach upon sanctions.
Former FBI intelligence analyst Nick Carlsen told CNN that DPRK operatives rooted in these firms would not only earn income used to edge sanctions but they could also potentially identify liabilities in certain client systems that their hacker comrades could take advantage of.
Carlsen explained, “Any vulnerability they might identify in a client’s systems would be at grave risk.”.
In a long Twitter expose about North Korean hackers, The Defi Edge noted that these crypto attacks typically target bridges, focus on companies based in Asia, and often commence by targeting innocent employees.
The country has been recognized as being allegedly behind some of the largest cyberattacks in recent crypto history, that includes the $620 million hack of Axie Infinity and the $100 million hack of the Harmony Protocol.
According to Coinclub on June 29 they estimated that there are as many as 7,000 full-time hackers in North Korea working to raise funds through cyberattacks, ransomware, and crypto-protocol hacks.
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