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North Korea is well known for being one of the most secretive and reclusive countries in the world. For years, it has been under heavy sanctions from the United Nations, the United States and other countries over its nuclear program. It has also been accused of using cyber warfare in order to gain funds to sustain its nuclear program.

RUSI (the Royal United Services Institute) is the world’s oldest independent think tank on international defence and security. The organization recently stated that North Korea has shown an increasing interest in virtual assets, as sanctions are getting harder to circumvent.

RUSI cited North Korean hackers for the alleged hijacking of crypto exchanges in South Korea as well as the “WannaCry” global ransomware attack that infected many computers around the world in 2017.

https://www.bitcrypt.co/southeast-asia-cryptocurrency-targeted-north-korea/ (https://www.bitcrypt.co/southeast-asia-cryptocurrency-targeted-north-korea/)

Well this is quite alraming. Due to decentralization, cryptocurrency can really be used in stealing, fraud, money laundering and any other legal activities while being anonymous and without the law noticibg it. We all know that North Korea is a closed country and silent with regards to what they are doing especially on technology and military activities. They might be the one who's responsible for exchange platforms attack recently where a lot of money were stolen unnoticed.

In theory, anyone can target Southeast Asia exchanges etc for their hack, not exclusively North Korean can do that. On top of that, it's easy to hide your track on the internet or even showing as if you're coming from North Korean. I can't find the report that was quoted by those media so it's hard to check it.

Whatever the truth is, it seems like North Korean as an entity (government) is blamed for the recent attacks to various crypto exchanges, malware and so on. In other words, their government is evil, asking people to do bad things like stealing money.

This is actually true there have been a lot of suspicions towards the North Korean activities and where they are able to get the fund to develop and produce nuclear weapons , and it turns out that a lot of the cryptocurrencies and cyber attacks that hit multiple banks and exchanges where millions and millions of dollars have gone to thin air, probably the most noticeable one was the Bangladesh heist where they were able to take 1 billion dollars only a couple of them were able to be retrieved and  the rest were traced down to north Korea, as well as other multiple heists.

North Korea has a good technology and knowledge about nuclear program and now they are starting to hacked and stole here in crypto world. This is very alarming. I think we really need to be centralized to avoid this kind of problem of security. I think bitcoin organization need to do something about this issue.

If there's no solid proof then I will not believe it no matter what because anyone can pinpoint that North Korea is the main culprit of any hacking incidents or even disasters in its neighboring countries as they are not cooperating with the US, and whoever oppose against the USA is a terrorist and a bad entity in the eyes of the people(too much 1 sided).

I see this more of a Whitewash or hearsay if there will be no proof to be rely on.

i still don't see how "countries" can benefit from cryptocurrencies specially those under sanctions because it is not like they can hide their trades with using a cryptocurrency and go around the sanction restrictions! it is a country we are talking about not individuals. i think the news sites are again spreading nonsense.
individuals however, will benefit a lot because they can do whatever they like when they use bitcoin and there is nothing that can restrict them.

North Korea is a country subject to many sanctions from countries and organizations around the world. But the country can still develop and maintain nuclear research activities. So I guess this country has been operating in the field of Crypto very early and the money spent can come from Crypto.

Nothing surprising about any of this. North Korea is basically surviving through a dictatorship model where Kim is a horrible dictator based on what I have read anyway. They have been reported in quite a few shady incidents in recent times which is why it is best to secure our investments in the best way possible to avoid losing everything in such cases.

No one really knows who created WannaCry virus but for some reason many people are blaming NK for that, classic. I don't say that it is not true but there is no public evidence about this statement.
But there is a fact that NK have a small "hacker army" that it getting money from small hacks and even gold farming in online games. There is a good article about that on bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-02-07/inside-kim-jong-un-s-hacker-army

Yeap, there is no solid evidences for the allegation that NK is behind the WannaCry ransomware. But it is indeed reasonable why some organizations cites them as the main actor of the ransomware because of their very bad reputation and bad history about doing anything for financial.

In the North Korea country they have a program that specializes in training hackers to steal property and keep confidential data from countries around the world. The most targeted country is South Korea, crypto is a top priority for hackers from North Korea.

Believe it or not, North Korea has one of the best haking groups in the entire world. They were respinsible for breaking the security of a major bank and stealing tens of millions of dollars without even getting caught. Well, people suspect it was them based on the digital trails. However, they are still not punished for that crime because so far, they got away with it. So I think they can also target Southeast Asia's cryptocurrency sector too.

One sentence,

* I would have been pretty shocked if they didn't do it because at the end of the time it's North Korean leader who is the most eccentric person in my opinion*

He is person who is starving the normal people , Killin them in any way that seems fair to him , has no respect or whatsoever for a human life.

Again this is what we can expect from him.

So they are now putting their efforts on cyber technologies not nuclear? I am shocked that they are the one accused for the WannaCry virus. Seem unlikely, but we can't be so sure.

North Korea doesn't have the tools to target any Asian Sector yet its cryptocurrency sector. We have seen in the news how poor North Korea is and the so-called attacks that they will imply to nearby Asian countries. I still have doubts that North Korea can do such attacks. Even their hackers are still far from being called a real hacker.

North korea is a notorious country and has always been interfering in the affairs of its neighbours especially when it comes to south korea as both share some epic rivalry. However i still think that dominating the whole of south asian economy would be difficult as japan and south korea are somewhat advoacting Cryptocurrency. Moreover even India might be against Cryptocurrency but will never advoacte such acts and north korea will definitely face criticism.

I have read many damaging reports about North Korea, but all these Cyber attacks and Cryptocurrency theft allegations against them, they have always denied it. Let the USA have a peace talk with the little rocket man and see how to open up the isolated country for a better life. Let these economics not always attack cryprtocurrency as been the major tool for online money theft.

Wasn't the WannaCry ransomware created in Russia or am I missing something? What's worse in North Korea is that normal people are denied access to the Internet entirely and only the government has access to it. Even China is more lenient than North Korea.

This was indeed alarming but also need to be taking into mature level of consideration because the old conflicts between the two nationals doesn't make the North Korea to the be the South Korea attackers cause a group or an organization could be responsible for the attack on North Korea soil just to create another political or national conflict. However, crypto currency decentralization shouldn't be responsible stealing, fraud etc done this days because such occasions are happening right before the creation of crypto currency and the abuser of crypto decentralization should punish by law.

Meanwhile, don't tell me the law can't notice it cause this which was nabbed by FBI was caught through something, we need to stop lying to our self the attackers can be capture if the governments want to and this why you should know some powerful people are behind the attack.


I will those who are involve to do diligent search before making any conclusion.

many reports said that it came from north korea, read here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WannaCry_ransomware_attack. i know that's a wiki page where everyone can edit it but you can look at the source links.

north korea is definitely not the place i want to live at this moment.

Yeah it says the attack originated in Asia so it must have been North Korea then. But I have the feeling China is also messing around with malicious hacking projects to steal Bitcoin. What if they are the real perpetrators and North Korea is the scapegoat? Does it sound a little bit farfetched  :o

While this story is alarming yet not enough to believe because north korea is known for being communist so their access in ths real world is limited, i guess this is just a finger pointing but the reality is the Other country is having a will to hack the crypto and they are jusy pointing to north korea so they will be blamed and may have no chancr to explain their side.north korea is a country with has a strong will and they won't risk everything just for hacking crypto lol

Living or not living in North Korea at this every moment doesn't make us escape any sort of crypto attack and also must not ignore that some article writer purpose is advert their site through fake news but if North Korea are definitely the one behind the whole scenario, it will  be better if genuine evidence are provided and charge them to court.

It's known that North Korea has been accumulating cryptocurrencies these last few years, particularly by hacking. This is thus an opportunity for companies to make their security more robust. North Korea's foray into the space may actually propel it into one of the more wealthy countries if it's accumulating cryptos to the degree some analysts believe.

Supported what you said because what I learned and knew about North Korea is that they are internet restriction country and only permit people with special authorization, the governments or foreigners to browser the internet with no limit. With this there's chance that the North Korea may not the really country behind the attacks.

 

The North Korean hackers are not just targeting the South Korean Bitcoin owners, they target every country in the world. <The easiest target are individuals with little knowledge about security and also smaller exchanges with weak security>  >:(

Also remember that North Korea has some allies and they circumvent these sanctions via their allies, so they are not just using technologies like Bitcoin to circumvent sanctions from their enemies.  ;)

They are always one step ahead, when it comes to things like this.  >:(

North Korean is the empire of smart people. Large countries influenced the North Korean by sanctions but the country still developed.

North Korean has face-to-face allies, and they support the country through various ways to eliminate the effects of sanctions from big countries.

With how they treated their communities, surely no one among us will love to stay from that country, there's no freedom and everything is controlled by the government, so with this news about the attacks, only government of N.Korea can control that if its true, no one is allow to use any access to the web as it's prohibited by the laws inside this country.

It's not farfetched but what incentives China will get if they indeed initiated the attack?

North Korea has far more benefits from it. They are still isolated and as far as I know under sanctions, so stealing bitcoins whether from exchanges or individual will get them more convenience or they will gain a lot from this state sponsored activity.

Alarming yet I think there are no exact facts to hold this thought as truth. I think this could be considered as a threat or a fraud. Countries should never make things as complicated as this. I know that each country has their own ways to develop. Conquering another will only make technology at risk for destruction and worst, no one could benefit on it anymore.

I wouldn't be surprised if the investigation lead to North Korea for the ransonware attack happened in 2017 and partially in 2018. However, one thing will be shocking to me if the investigation reveals that the hackers are of North Korean origin. Because where common mass is allowed to use internet, how they will have homegrown hackers? The hackers must be from different origins working on commission basis for North Korea! That's my understanding!

Also I don't think North Korea has the technical expertise to launch a full scale attack in cryptocurrency market. They may try to weaken it by other measures which is very difficult to sustain for long run. Overall, I seriously think North Korea is too small Nd weak to break into crypto market. If it was China, I would have thought differently!

It is true that North Korea is suspected to be behind the hacking on the exchange located at South Korea. There are also many news that North Korea is really interested in bitcoin and a group of hackers were formed to fish bitcoin in the internet.

If the accusations were true then it is really something that we should watch out. But I dont believe that North Korea would really be targeting all exchange in Southeast Asia but its not bad to take some steps to avoid being a victim. So I guess its safe to keep our bitcoin and other assets in our wallets than to store it in exchanges since if you notice there are multiple exchange are already been hacked and recently Cryptopia was one of the victim. Though the hacker is not North Korea but  let us be safe and avoid storing our assets on exchange.