North Korean attacks on crypto exchanges reportedly netted $316m in two years

North Korean attacks on crypto exchanges reportedly netted an estimated $316m in cryptocurrency in 2019 and 2020, according to a report by Japan’s Nikkei. The outlet says it saw that figure in a draft of a United Nations report destined for the desk of the Security Council's North Korea Sanctions Committee. That Committee’s …

[amanfromMars 1]

A very dangerous and disastrously self-harming dodgy dossier methodology ....

..... for practitioners of perverse standard corrupt practices

Simon,

Try as I did, and surely as others would also do, I could not find out from your article who is/are responsible for providing the source materiel for that draft to be made up into a report from the United Nations destined for the desk of the Security Council's North Korea Sanctions Committee.

Such rampant anonymity allows for all manner of abuse of due process and can easily destroy all credibility and legitimacy in anything decided upon after the report's reading.

[Anonymous Coward]

316m in two years

Surely the way Bitcoin's going that just means buying a few coins at the start of 2019. No hacking needed.

[Anonymous Coward]

$316m in two years from crypto alone would represent a very decent haul.

Well, sort of. North Korea is a country of some 25 million people; the decent haul therefore amounts to a little over $12 each. And if $12 might still be a "decent haul" to some notional average North Korean, it seems to me that that says more about the worthless government there than it does about much else.

[Martin Summers]

Re: $316m in two years from crypto alone would represent a very decent haul.

Because of course it's going to be spent on the people...

[doublelayer]

Re: $316m in two years from crypto alone would represent a very decent haul.

Well, most of those people's consumption comes only from food that can be grown domestically and the occasional foreign aid to prevent as many people from starving outright. There are maybe 10k people who matter to the country, which means a much more respectable $31600 per important person.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

But with the likes of PayPal taking cryptocurrency well and truly into the mainstream, North Korea may find it easier to put its purloined cloud cash to work.

We may see Kim Jong-Un & co being driven round Pyongyang in a fleet of Chinese manufactured Teslas, bought with BitCoin. But even they may hold off until some of the quality and safety issues are sorted out

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-08/tesla-summoned-by-china-regulators-over-quality-safety-issues

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Electric-cars-in-China/Tesla-and-Musk-risk-wearing-out-China-welcome-over-quality-fears

https://news.yahoo.com/tesla-buys-1-5b-bitcoin-133501118.html

[_LC_]

"… according to a report by Japan’s Nikkei."

As there may be people not knowing this, but the Japanese truly love the North Koreans! You could not get a more unbiased source. Not even if you were - say - esquiring about dogs by asking a cat. ;-)

[doublelayer]

Re: "… according to a report by Japan’s Nikkei."

I'm sorry, you've lost me.

"the Japanese truly love the North Koreans!": I'm guessing this is sarcasm, given the dog and cat comparison and that it's wrong, but then you say:

"You could not get a more unbiased source.": Did you mean a "more biased source"? Or was that sarcasm too? If both were sarcasm, it sounds weird to me.

By the way, it's not really fair. Japan and North Korea don't recognize each other and frequently argue (not really bias on Japan's part as North Korea has this nasty habit of shooting missiles at them). Still, there are countries that have worse relations with them, including the U.S., France, Taiwan, and places like that. Japan also contains a surprisingly high number of pro-Pyongyang organizations, although they are operated primarily by a small subset of ethnic Koreans and don't speak for Japan as a whole or the Korean community there.

[Version 1.0]

Only 316m?

Given the sanctions on North Korea that seems like a small amount when you look at the cost of their rockets and other spending. All we ever hear about from North Korea is guesswork - it would seem that they have a very secure government and corporate environment and are not getting hacked themselves. I suspect they are far better at hacking other countries than we think.

[amanfromMars 1]

Re: Only 316m?

How very odd that anyone would think to silently and anonymously downvote that comment of yours, Version 1.0.

A few simple words of reason by way of explanation would have been nice. Missing those, any such contributions are both mindless and meaningless although there are quite a few who practise such a lost cause.

What on Earth are they ever thinking? Do they do much thinking is something which they might like to ask themselves?

Maybe they are just poorly programmed bots ....... which be really odd bods indeed.

[Claptrap314]

When I saw amanfromMars 1 was commenting...

given the nature of the article, I read the comment. He makes an excellent point. Public declamations should be publicly sourceable.

[Claptrap314]

I wonder

What wages those hackers working for the government are drawing. The $316m is surely a very, very good ROI for their government.

I expect that they are probably really good programmers, too. It would be a shame if some enterprising outside group would spirit them away with their family & cousins....