South Korea's Cyber ​​Intelligence Center: North Korean hackers are funded by the state, and domestic Bitcoin exchanges have become victims

A South Korean official has accused a group of state-sponsored North Korean hackers of their actions and intent to attack the country’s bitcoin exchanges.

According to Radio Free Asia (RFA), a non-profit news organization in East Asia, at least one or two South Korean bitcoin and digital currency exchanges have been targeted by its northern neighbor. The accusation was made by Simon Choi, an official at the Korea Cyber ​​Intelligence Center (CWIC).

Choi said North Korean hackers' attack methods include phishing attacks, that is, sending emails containing malware to target companies in South Korea. Usually, such emails falsely claim to represent a certain department of the South Korean government to gain the trust of the victims. CWIC said that the malware in the emails includes viruses that originated from North Korea.

Bitcoin = safe haven for foreign exchange reserves?

As for the purpose of North Korean attackers hacking into digital currency exchanges, Lim Jong-in, a professor at the Graduate School of Information Security at Korean University, has his own opinion.

You can hide the identity of cryptocurrency holders…while also opening up new sources of foreign reserves.

Earlier this year, a South Korean cybersecurity firm said North Korean hackers stole an average of about 100 million won ($90,000) worth of bitcoins per month between 2013 and 2015. They said the attacks were aimed at increasing reserves of hard currency or safe-haven currencies.

Choi also revealed that in addition to Bitcoin exchanges, these attackers from North Korea also target blockchain startups.

Simon Choi says:

It wasn’t just one or two exchanges that were victims of the attack.

Startups using blockchain, financial technology and other related companies may have become their targets.

The North Korean hackers’ accusations of attacking South Korean companies come months after Bithumb, South Korea’s largest Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange, suffered an extremely serious data breach. The personal information of nearly 31,000 users of the exchange was leaked due to a phone scam. The private information was reportedly used to steal billions of won from Bithumb user accounts.

The South Korean government launched an investigation into the data breach, and the exchange offered 100,000 won ($86) in compensation to all affected customers.