North Korea mines cryptocurrency exclusively through foreign hacked PCs

While a lot of attention has been focused on the hackers of North Korea, the question of how and where the country mines digital currency has not been discussed widely. Turns out that North Korea simply does not have enough electricity to mine digital currency within its borders, cybersecurity researchers from AlienVault and journalists from The Investor tell. South Korean scientists also tell about the Lazarus Group involved in this unlawful remote mining - older reports suggest that it was responsible for the infamous WannaCry attack. One can guess that for a UN-sanctioned regime, it would also be hard to get the required hardware.

The DPRK-backed hackers are one of the most dangerous criminal syndicates present in the crypto space. They not only intercept resources of other PCs via mechanisms similar to CoinHive, sometimes they try to breach digital currency exchanges of its neighbor countries. The Lazarus Group consists of best computer science students North Korea has to offer, as the intelligence suggests. The alleged base of operations is the Kim Il Sung University.

And even despite all the recent warming of political climate on the Korean peninsula and the upcoming meeting of the U.S. President with Kim Jong-un, there are no indications that North Korean hackers have abandoned their activities. This, however, can happen if the subsequent political negotiations prove to be positive.

Image courtesy of es.gizmodo.com