The U.S. Condition Division has introduced benefits of up to $10 million for any information and facts that could help disrupt North Korea’s cryptocurrency theft, cyber-espionage, and other illicit condition-backed pursuits.
“If you have facts on any men and women affiliated with the North Korean govt-connected destructive cyber groups (this sort of as Andariel, APT38, Bluenoroff, Guardians of Peace, Kimsuky, or Lazarus Team) and who are involved in concentrating on U.S. critical infrastructure in violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, you may perhaps be eligible for a reward,” the section explained in a tweet.
The sum is double the bounty the agency publicized in March 2022 for details regarding the monetary mechanisms employed by point out-sponsored actors performing on behalf of the North Korean authorities.
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The development arrives a week right after the Justice Section disclosed the seizure of $500,000 truly worth of Bitcoin from North Korean hackers who extorted electronic payments by making use of a new ransomware strain known as Maui.
The danger actor, tracked less than the umbrella moniker Lazarus Team (aka Hidden Cobra or APT38), is known to goal blockchain companies and conduct fiscally-pushed criminal offense by means of rogue cryptocurrency wallet apps. Andariel and Bluenoroff are claimed to be subgroups inside of the much larger Lazarus cluster.
Blockchain analytics company Chainalysis in a report previously this yr connected the Lazarus Team to 7 attacks directed against cryptocurrency platforms in 2021, thieving roughly $400 million well worth of digital assets in the procedure.
It has also been implicated in the hacks of Axie Infinity’s Ronin Network Bridge and Harmony Horizon Bridge in recent months, resulting in the theft of hundreds of hundreds of thousands of bucks in digital currencies.
Earlier this thirty day period, Microsoft warned that a North Korean activity cluster it phone calls DEV-0530 has been making use of a personalized ransomware pressure dubbed H0lyGh0st to effectively compromise smaller organizations in various nations around the world.
Cyber-enabled money theft and dollars laundering, ransomware, cryptojacking, and extortion operations are part of Pyongyang-aligned hackers’ tactical playbook to create illegal earnings though mitigating the impression of sanctions.
“The North Korean authorities — officially identified as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) — employs destructive cyber exercise to acquire intelligence, carry out attacks, and deliver profits,” the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) notes in its advisory.
“North Korea has conducted cyber theft towards money institutions and cryptocurrency exchanges throughout the world, most likely stealing hundreds of millions of pounds, probably to fund authorities priorities, these as its nuclear and missile plans.”
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Some sections of this short article are sourced from:
thehackernews.com