Over the past five years, North Korea has used hackers to steal $3 billion in cryptocurrencies to fund its nuclear program. This is reported by the journalists of the Wall Street Journal.

The country has created and is still creating a shadow labor force of thousands of IT specialists working in all countries around the world, including Russia and China. All of them earn sometimes more than $300,000 a year doing routine work. These people pose as Canadian IT professionals, government officials, and freelance Japanese blockchain developers. Sometimes they can masquerade as potential employers.

In order to be hired by cryptocurrency companies, they invite front actors who sit for job interviews. After people are hired, they make small changes to products, which are then hacked, WSJ journalists write.

Earlier it became known that hacker groups associated with the DPRK stole $ 721 million in cryptocurrency from Japanese entrepreneurs from 2017 to 2022.

The US authorities believe that cyber attacks and theft of cryptocurrencies have become the main source of income for the North Korean authorities. At least half of North Korea’s missile program is funded by cybercrime, Washington says.

In May, analysts at Sekoia released a report that North Korean hacker group BlueNoroff was attacking macOS users with malware called RustBucket.