The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea—often referred to as North Korea—is reportedly responsible for 61% of crypto stolen this year, according to Chainalysis.
“In 2023, North Korea-affiliated hackers stole approximately $660.50 million across 20 incidents; in 2024, this number increased to $1.34 billion stolen across 47 incidents—a 102.88% increase in value stolen,” Chainalysis, a major crypto-forensics firm, has released a report. North Korean hackers have taken the largest amount of money from any other year.
Luis Lubeck is the services project manager for crypto-security firm Hacken. Decrypt It is clear that financial co-operation between North Korea & Russia has exacerbated the situation.
"It heightens threats by sharing tools and expertise, complicating attribution and response efforts," “He said” "This partnership could escalate global cyber conflicts and reshape how cyber warfare will held place with alliances instead of solo efforts from one state."
North Korea hackers are posing to be smart contract developers. They include hidden vulnerabilities and backdoors into the projects in which they participate. So far, in 2024, 47 hacks have been linked to North Korean hackers—equivalent to two-thirds of the total number of crypto hacks.
One of these hacks was the theft by cybercriminals linked to North Korea, who pretended to be a former contractor and shared files with an employee to spread malware. According to reports, the malware was sophisticated. It created a macOS permanent backdoor and displayed a PDF that appeared to be legitimate to the user in order to avoid detection.
Lubeck noted that North Korean actors were using increasingly advanced tactics. “new tactics leverage AI to create fake personas (with the evolving of deep fakes), making it harder to identify bad actors.” Some old techniques are still a problem, like detecting advanced Phishing and identifying digital identities that were created by remote workers.
United States officials and other international authorities claim that North Korea steals cryptocurrency to fund its weapons of destruction programs and ballistic rocket development. Reports published in May suggest that its hacking efforts fund half of North Korea's missile program.
Lubeck proposed that a possible solution might be to “strengthen international collaboration on cryptocurrency tracking, enforce stricter KYC measures on exchanges, and improve real-time intelligence sharing.” He said that the effectiveness of sanctions is limited due to deception tactics.
Stacy Elliott edited this article.