North Korea is more and more utilizing its crypto heists to fund its nuclear weapons program, nervous U.S. officers say. “I’m very involved about North Korea’s cyber capabilities,” Anne Neuberger, the Biden administration’s deputy nationwide safety adviser for cyber and rising expertise, mentioned not too long ago throughout an occasion hosted by the Middle for a New American Safety (CNAS). “They use cyber to achieve, we estimate, as much as a 3rd of [stolen crypto] funds to fund their missile program.” “That’s a serious situation, whether or not it’s assaults in opposition to cryptocurrency exchanges or use of data expertise employees in numerous international locations,” Neuberger mentioned. She added that North Korea’s growth of its missile testing is a prime precedence for the U.S., which is taking a number of steps to counter Pyongyang’s cyber threats, together with imposing sanctions in opposition to felony teams and seizing stolen digital belongings. A United Nations report this yr discovered that between 2020 and 2021, North Korean-backed hackers stole greater than $50 million in digital belongings to fund the nation’s missile program, the BBC reported. The U.N. report additionally revealed that the assaults focused at the least three cryptocurrency exchanges in North America, Europe and Asia.
Full story : North Korea’s increasing use of crypto heists to fund nukes worries US.
