North Korean hackers stole millions of dollars’ worth of bitcoin and other digital currencies earlier this year — which are now worth more than $80 million, South Korea’s spy agency said.
Nearly $7 million of the cryptocurrency that went missing from electronic exchanges over several months was swiped using the same sort of malware used to hack Sony Pictures in 2014, according to a report in the Chosun Ilbo newspaper that cites South Korea’s National Intelligence Service.
The cyber attacks also involved personal information lifted from 36,000 accounts in June from Bithumb, the world’s busiest electronic currency exchange, the newspaper reported.
North Korean hackers demanded $5.5 million from Bithumb in return for deleting the leaked information, the report said.
Another exchange known as Yapizon — which recently changed its name to Youbit — was similarly attacked in April, and the exchange Coinis was hacked in September.
The Korea Internet & Security Agency in October thwarted another attack on 10 exchanges. The attack used e-mails containing malware with North Korean Internet addresses.
The thefts took place before a recent bitcoin price surge. The price of bitcoin, the best known cryptocurrency, leaped to $16,699.68 on Friday. Just a year ago, it was $764.
North Korea may need an influx of ill-gotten cash to get around new sanctions aimed at getting dictator Kim Jong-un to stop his buildup of nuclear weapons.
Sanctions imposed in response to recent missile tests are making it even harder to get food to the isolated country, where up to 70 percent of the population is already constantly struggling to fight hunger, a UN agency said Saturday.
The UN’s World Food Program, UNICEF, the World Health Organization and the UN Development Program all have operations in North Korea. A small number of US and other humanitarian agencies provide food, medical and agricultural assistance from bases outside the country.
Save the Children was the first agency to “temporarily” pull up stakes because the sanctions made delivering aid too difficult.
Separately, a Russian diplomat said Saturday the United States is making the situation worse by taking a tougher stance on talks that might quell the impasse with the rogue nation.
There’s a “risk of uncontrolled escalation,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told reporters.
