La Corée du Nord signs a record flight with an unprecedented cyberattack on Japan

The FBI and the Japanese police revealed that the crash of a cryptocurrency platform was linked to a massive theft of bitcoins launched by several North Korean hackers. The pirates would be the equivalent of 300 million euros.

Le record de la cyberattaque la plus redoutable was revélé this fine year. In a statement published by the FBI and Japanese law enforcement, about North Korean hackers who discovered 300 million euros on the Japanese platform. cryptocurrencies DMM en May 2024. Le groupe de pirates est connu puisk’il s’agirait de Lazarusun collectif lié au gouvernement North Korean, chargé d’extraire des cryptomonnaies pour financer le régime de Pyongyang.

Le mode opératoire du groupe Lazarus a employé une méthode debenete sa marque de factory. It all starts in March, when a hacker pretends to be a recruiter on LinkedIn and gets in touch with an employee of Ginco, a Japanese company specializing in software for cryptographic portfolios. Profitant of this false identity, the pirate envoie to sa cible une URL pretendument piégée pour un test de pre-embauche si control the son post.

From this initial access, Lazarus has progressively étendu son emprise jusqu’à to the DMM platform. Les cybercriminels ont piégé les systèmes de leur nouvelle cible en usurpant les identités des employés et en compromettant leurs comptes. What control leur allowed d’observer les processus internes de gestion des transactions et d’identifier des failles exploitables.

In May 2024, ils lancent leur attaque finale, laissant d’abord croire qu’il s’agit d’une legitimate transaction, redirector ainsi 4 502.9 Bitcoins vers des portefeuilles contrôlées par le groupe, or approximately 300 million euros.

Comparatively, a multinational has paid a record $75 million ransom en 2024 in a group of cybercriminals called Dark Angels.

A fake account created by a hacker and represented by Microsoft. // Source: Microsoft — A fake LinkedIn account created by a hacker and represented by Microsoft. // Source: Microsoft

North Korea finances its military arsenal with cyberattacks

This attack highlights the extent of cybercriminal activities linked to North Korea. According to Chain analysis, les hackers North Koreans stole 1.34 billion dollars in cryptocurrencies through 47 incidents in 2024, a net increase compared to 660 million in 2023.

L’argent volé thanks to the illegal activities supported by North Korea à l’échelle mondiale is re-routed verse le regime pour financer ses programs d’armementy includes le développement d’armes de massive destruction.

La plateforme DMM, unable to recover from this colossal loss, announced to close permanently two weeks before the year. La société had to survive in contracting a loan of 55 billion yen (environ 367 million dollars) in June, more les déjàts financiers et la perte de confiance des utilisers ont scellé son sort.

Aller plus loins are poured