Jon Chang Hyok, 31, Kim Il, 27, and Park Jin Hyok, 36, were indicted on Wednesday by US officials announced Wednesday. The three North Korean nationals are accused of carrying out a series of hacks against companies and financial institutions, targeting the cryptocurrency industry in particular, in an attempt to steal around $ 1.3 billion in all.
“These North Korean agents, using computer keyboards rather than weapons, stealing computer wallets filled with cryptocurrency rather than bags filled with cash, are the number one bank robbers in the world,” commented Federal Attorney John Demers. According to the indictment filed in a Los Angeles court, the three suspects are part of a North Korean military intelligence agency known to have previously launched cyber attacks.
Seven years of hacking
The scale of their crimes is “pharaminous” and illustrates “the growing alliance between officials working for states and highly sophisticated pirates,” said Michael D’Ambrosio, a director of the Secret Service. The three agents are accused of having carried out these operations in order to obtain funds for their government, while avoiding the UN sanctions which have dried up the sources of income of the Pyongyang regime.
For at least seven years, according to the US authorities, they created malicious cryptocurrency applications that opened “back doors” (back doors, or illegitimate access) in targeted computers; have hacked into companies trading digital currencies like bitcoin; and have developed a blockchain platform to evade sanctions and secretly raise funds. The US Department of Justice does not specify the total sum on which the three men would have got their hands.
Millions of dollars stolen
But during an operation in 2018, for example, they stole, according to the Justice Department, $ 6.1 million from ATMs in BankIslami, Pakistan, after having access to the computer network. They would also have seized virtual currency exchanges in Slovenia and Indonesia and stolen $ 11.8 million from a New York exchange market.
The US lawsuits build on the 2018 charges against one of the three, Park Jin Hyok, for the 2014 Sony Pictures hack and the 2016 theft of $ 81 million from the Bangladesh central bank. The Sony Pictures piracy had been claimed by a group demanding from the film studio that it cancel the release of “The interview that kills!” “, A comedy in which two journalists are approached by the CIA to kill Kim Jong Un. On Wednesday, US State Department spokesman Ned Price said Washington was reviewing its policy on the issue. from Pyongyang.
This review “will take into account all malicious activity and threats emanating from North Korea,” he said. “More often than not, we talk about North Korea’s nuclear program and ballistic missiles, but of course its malicious cyber activity is something that we carefully assess as well,” he added.
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