According to a recent report – the report still remains confidential, meaning an official, verified version of the report hasn’t yet been released directly by the United Nations or any other news publication – from the United Nations that was first seen by Reuters, North Korean state cybercriminals perpetrated a scheme in which they stole more than two billion dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency and fiat currency.
The United Nations report indicates that North Korea, formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which is quite the contradictory name for the country considering that it is operated in a truly authoritarian manner by Kim Jong Un, the nation’s Supreme Leader, has used the proceeds of its thieving operations to fund programs dedicated to the creation, sourcing, stockpiling, and utilization of weapons of mass destruction.
The report went on to say that the two billion dollars’ worth of currency stolen – two billion United States Dollars, that is – came from a variety of web-based cryptocurrency exchanges and legitimate financial institutions. The North Korean state cybercriminals have also targeted corporate and independent cryptocurrency and digital currency mining operations alike in drumming up financial support for its various programs that are almost certainly not looked favorably upon by the rest of the world.
Traditional forms of income generation are subject to substantial oversight by governments of other countries, federations of countries such as the United Nations, and non-governmental organizations alike. North Korea has made substantial efforts to distance itself from the countless legitimate forms of income generation available to the country because such income is easy to trace. Kim Jong Un and company don’t want that money to be traced because the regime fears that world superpowers, such as the United States, for example, would have reason to place substantial sanctions against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
One way that North Korean cybercriminals have avoided such regulation is through the creation of highly sophisticated theft and money laundering schemes. Without the development of schemes for both money laundering and thieving, the country effectively welcomes other government agencies and non-governmental organizations alike to oversee its income generation, which could cause serious potential problems for the country.
It isn’t clear how long North Korea has been carrying out such illegal, shady, unethical income generation and money laundering schemes through the World Wide Web, though experts believe such operations have been going on for more than a few years.
