U.S. authorities have moved to seize 280 cryptocurrency accounts and have been used cryptocurrency firms around the world, including one in the United States, says North Korean hackers.
The U.S. Justice Department reported that North Korean hackers and their Chinese officers use the accounts designated for civil default filing to launder money stolen from over a dozen virtual exchanges, which has cost more than USD 300 million in the past two years.
Along with a display of other recent acts by other federal government entities, the file indicates that while top officials from Trump say nuclear-armed tensions have calmed Pyongyang, North Korea is seen by U.S. law enforcement and national security officials as a major threat to national security and the global financial system. According to UN analysts and U.S. officials, the Pyongyang regime uses cyber robbery to finance its military and nuclear program.
The Department of Justice and Internal Revenue Service officials said North Korean hackers used malware to get in and steal user’s accounts and then laundered their profits through Chinese intermediaries. American officials said hackers were connected by one of the hacker’s organizations, according to the U.S., which is run by the intelligentsia office of North Korea, the so-called Lazarus Party.
In March, two Chinese people charged with assisting North Korean hackers to launder the money stolen from cryptocurrency bills were charged and prosecuted by the Department of Justice. At the time, Federal Prosecutors accused the hackers of helping the funds to be transferred, including by exchanging the bitcoin for Apple iTunes prepayment cards. In Washington, the United States Attorney’s Office also lodges a civil suit to recover properties illegally kept in 113 virtual currency accounts and the United States. The two men were blacklisted at the same time by the Treasury department.
Stressing the view that North Korea’s cyber robberies pose a danger to national security for the US. The North Korea multibillion-dollar cyber theft activities were identified last month’s military report as a key element of the electronic warfare operations in Pyongyang. In its cyberwarfare special unit, it says the country has an estimated 6,000 hackers, many of them worldwide. Some hackers are members of the Justice Department groups in the US, according to the report. As responsible for hacks against the global financial system, Treasury and other departments.
The methods of pilfering funds in North Korea include the overt hacking of banks and cryptocurrency exchanges, cryptocurrency mining, and low-level web-based schemes such as online video game manipulation to gain money and money points.
