US accuses three North Korean cyber spies of stealing more than $ 1.3 billion from banks and businesses

The United States Department of Justice has charged three North Korean computer programmers with a wide range of destructive global hacks, whose victims included banks and a movie studio, federal prosecutors reported Wednesday.

The indictment, which has just been revealed to the public, is part of an earlier criminal trial started in 2018 and adds two more North Korean defendants. Prosecutors say The three programmers are agents of a North Korean government military intelligence agency.

The indictment adds that the intelligence agency, called the General Reconnaissance Office, is part of a global conspiracy that obtained more than $ 1,300 million in various currencies and cryptocurrencies by extorting banks and companies; launched a massive campaign of “ransomware”, a malicious computer program that locks down a computer and displays a message demanding a ransom to free user data; and hacked the Sony Pictures Entertainment studio in 2014 because of a Hollywood movie (The interview) which displeased the North Korean government.

As today’s indictment points out, North Korean agents, using keyboards instead of weapons, stealing digital cryptocurrency wallets instead of bags of cash, are the main bank robbers in the world, “he told Deputy Attorney General John Demers, senior national security official in the press department.

New complaint against Pyongyang

On another side, South Korea’s intelligence service said on Tuesday that North Korean hackers attempted to steal information about coronavirus vaccines and treatments, but he denied that the target was pharmaceutical company Pfizer, as one lawmaker put it.

Hours earlier, Ha Tae-keung, a member of Parliament’s intelligence committee, told reporters that the National Intelligence Service reported in a closed meeting that North Korea had hacked Pfizer to obtain the technology. of its COVID vaccine.

When Ha’s statements were released, the SNI said it had not named a drug company in advising lawmakers that the North Korean hackers were seeking information on the coronavirus vaccine. SIN’s public affairs office said Ha’s statements were “false.”

The SNI, with an uneven track record of confirming events in North Korea, often does not disclose the information it provides to lawmakers behind closed doors. Ha hinted that the SNI was trying not to anger North Korea.

Kwon Bo-young, public relations manager at Pfizer’s South Korean office, said in a text message that he was verifying Ha’s complaint with the company’s global headquarters.

With AP information

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