North Korea earns billions from crypto hacking

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Last Updated on 19 November 2023 by CryptoTips.eu

Russia, Iran and North Korea have all known for a long time that the West is not really enthusiastic about their regimes. As from the beginning of the 21st century, Iran therefore specialized in obtaining uranium for a nuclear weapon. Russia and North Korea decided upon another target, the fast-growing power of the internet.

In order to undermine democratic governments, Russia started having entire factory floors full of young people who were posting on the Internet, so-called ‘troll factories’.

Young people who were specifically trained to respond on Facebook and other social media platforms in order to help the far-right or populist parties in the west. Russia was accused of manipulating the 2016 election of Donald Trump.

Since you can’t really find any evidence for this unless you access Facebook’s ‘God Mode’, nothing was done about it.

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Ransomware

North Korea knew that responding via social media and trolling had long-term effects, but since it didn’t have oil reserves like Russia, it had to find a way to quickly generate revenue.

It therefore changed tack in 2017. That’s when Kim Jong Un’s regime started hacking crypto platforms and sending out ransomware.

One of their biggest hits that year was Wannacry, a virus that infected and eventually took over your computer. If you wanted to see your files again, you had to make a payment in Bitcoin; Pyongyang received a lot of Bitcoin in this manner.

At the end of 2017, Bitcoin’s price went to $20,000 for the first time. Kim realized that there was a lot of money to be made from crypto hacking and rapidly expanded his hacker team.

Last year, which was actually a bad year for crypto prices, they collected about one and a half billion euros this way, or half of all stolen digital coins of 2022.

Axie Infinity

One of their biggest exploits in 2022 was the hacking of a software engineer’s computer. The man had worked on Axie Infinity and via his desktop the North Korean team got into the Axie blockchain. If you remember, Axie was an incredibly popular online game that went viral in 2021.

By taking care of your ‘axies’ and letting them fight against other ‘axies’, you could earn crypto coins of the blockchain, Axie Infinity. As the game got more popular and the demand for Metaverse games went viral, the price of Axie infinity skyrocketed.

When crypto prices crashed in 2022, Axie Infinity’s developers didn’t have too much work left anymore. An Axie programmer in Hong Kong received an offer via LinkedIn for a new job from an obscure Singapore software company. After a conversation and an online interview, a salary quotation was sent to him via a PDF file.

When he opened it, his computer was taken over and the hacker team in Pyongyang was able to obtain the source code of Axie Infinity. $620 million was stolen in a single day.

By now, hacking crypto accounts has generated more revenue for the regime than ransomware, up to three times more. This year, North Korea is believed to be responsible for around 30 of the largest crypto hacks.

Jeroen Kok

Jeroen is one of the lead copywriters on Cryptotips.eu and discusses all recent events in the crypto market. This includes news updates, but also price analyzes and more. He developed his passion for cryptocurrency during the bull run in 2017. He has learned a lot since then. The combination of cryptocurrency and creative writing is perfect for Jeroen and an excellent way to share his knowledge with a wide audience. Find me on LinkedIn / [email protected]
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