The United Nations Security Council has released a report showing North Korea earns 50% of its foreign exchange earnings from cyberattacks.
The council is also investigating involvement in cyberattacks associated with cryptocurrency companies, which reportedly caused losses of approximately $3 billion .North Korea primarily conducts cyberattacks by compromising digital wallet private keys and seed phrases, which are crucial for wallet security.
Attacks attributed to the DPRK were, on average, ten times as damaging as those not linked to the country. Since 2017, Pyongyang-linked threat actors have caused nearly $3 billion in cryptocurrency losses.cryptocurrency to fund their nuclear weapons programs. Facing United Nations sanctions since its initial nuclear test in 2006, North Korea’s financial resources for its nuclear efforts have been targeted.
The report highlights that cyberattacks fund about 40% of North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction development costs. There has been a noted uptick in cyberattacks targeting defense-oriented firms, with entities linked to North Korea’s Reconnaissance General Directorate increasingly pooling resources and cyber tools.
The panel’s investigations also explored the possibility of Hamas using weaponry of North Korean origin, a claim supported by Israel, which asserts that Hamas has dozens of North Korean missiles and anti-tank arms. North Korea, however, refutes these claims, dismissing them as baseless.