A new investigation by Mandiant, a cybersecurity firm, reveals that North Korea is now using cryptocurrency mining to launder stolen money. According to Mandiant, tens of thousands of dollars in cryptos have been transferred to hashing services in North Korea, fueling a thriving underground market.
North Korean Hackers Adopt New Laundering Technique
As a reminder, cryptocurrencies have a history recorded in immutable blockchains that underpin their economy. Although regulators seek to push forward the crypto anti-money laundering law, the inherent transparency of cryptos does not facilitate illicit activities.
Unfortunately, North Korean hackers seem to know how to get around the rules. Beggar reports that APT43 is adopting a new method to collect stolen funds and prevent them from being seized or frozen.
This group has primarily targeted think tanks, academics and some private companies since at least 2018.
However, like many North Korean hacker groups, APT43 is also interested in lucrative cybercrime. He steals any cryptocurrency that could enrich the North Korean regime or even just fund his own operations.
How APT43 uses mining to cover its tracks
North Korean hacker group APT43 has come up with a clever trick to launder cryptocurrencies.
According to a report by Mandiant, APT43 dumps stolen cryptocurrencies into “hash services.” The latter rent computing time on computers to mine cryptocurrencies.
This technique allows APT43 to harvest newly mined coins, which have no apparent connection to criminal activity. This makes it difficult to recover funds from victims.
Mandiant began observing this whitening technique in August 2022. Since then, she has seen tens of thousands of dollars worth of cryptocurrencies are flowing into these hashing services.
To access the storage systems of the victims’ cryptocurrency wallets, the hackers used sophisticated techniques, according to Mandiant.
Cryptocurrency security remains a top concern for users as attacks continue to grow and become more sophisticated. In this context, the search for reliable and secure storage solutions is essential to protect the digital assets of users. In addition, China has announced that it is giving itself until 2025 to improve its blockchain standards.
Receive a digest of news in the world of cryptocurrencies by subscribing to our new service of daily and weekly so you don’t miss any of the essential Tremplin.io!
