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Thawing tensions on the Korean Peninsula faced a fresh test Monday when Seoul accused its northern neighbor of hacking cryptocurrency exchanges, stealing bitcoin and other digital currency worth millions of dollars.
"North Korea sent emails that could hack into cryptocurrency exchanges and their customers’ private information and stole (cryptocurrency) worth billions of won,” Kim Byung-kee, a member of South Korea’s parliamentary intelligence committee, said Monday, Reuters reported.
Pyongyang is still trying to hack into the cryptocurrency exchanges, Kim said, but the South was doing its best to prevent further infiltration.
Security firm Recorded Future released a report January claiming that a team of North Korean hackers, known as Lazarus Group, had targeted South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges throughout 2017.
Security companies have cited Lazarus as the group also behind the devastating WannaCry ransomware attack that crippled businesses and organizations across the globe last year. The U.S. government refers to the group as Hidden Cobra.
Lazarus is reported to have used phishing emails tied to the Winter Olympics to trick users into clicking on malicious links that download corrupted files and install malware.
The emails specifically targeted users of the Hangul Word Processor, a Korean-language computer program widely used in South Korea.
"North Korea sent emails that could hack into cryptocurrency exchanges and their customers’ private information and stole (cryptocurrency) worth billions of won,” Kim Byung-kee, a member of South Korea’s parliamentary intelligence committee, said Monday, Reuters reported.
Pyongyang is still trying to hack into the cryptocurrency exchanges, Kim said, but the South was doing its best to prevent further infiltration.
Security firm Recorded Future released a report January claiming that a team of North Korean hackers, known as Lazarus Group, had targeted South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges throughout 2017.
Security companies have cited Lazarus as the group also behind the devastating WannaCry ransomware attack that crippled businesses and organizations across the globe last year. The U.S. government refers to the group as Hidden Cobra.
Lazarus is reported to have used phishing emails tied to the Winter Olympics to trick users into clicking on malicious links that download corrupted files and install malware.
The emails specifically targeted users of the Hangul Word Processor, a Korean-language computer program widely used in South Korea.
If you are Korean, and use the Hangul Word Processor, take extra care...