North Korea

Criminals commonly use cryptocurrency to carry out illicit activities such as money laundering, funding terrorism activities, buying and selling narcotics and many others. According to the new report by the UN, hackers have been attacking exchanges to steal the cryptocurrency and then use it to fund nuclear weapons development. North Korea is leading the game.

The Political Affairs Committee of South Korea’s National Assembly has informed the Financial Services Commission (FSC) on numerous attempts of hackers to break into the country’s financial institutions. Cryptocurrency exchanges became the main target.

Twitter attackers have been laundering stolen funds via gambling websites and peer-to-peer marketplaces, leaving a handle that links them to one of North Korea’s hacker groups.

Lazarus, a famous hacking group originating from North Korea, might be trying to steal Bitcoin and other digital currencies through Telegram. Previously, the hackers from this illustrious group have managed to crackdown a good number of cryptocurrency exchanges and run away with a huge amount of money, and other victim exchanges have declared their bankruptcy.

Recent UN reports shows that North Korea (DPRK) has managed to amass around $2 billion for its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) activities via cyberattacks that illegally accessed people’s bank accounts and digital currency exchanges.

A recently published report by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) for Defense & Security Studies, shows how DPRK - Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) wants to exploit Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies, especially in Southeast Asia, so as to bypass international economic sanctions.

North Korea's hackers and operatives have entirely adopted crypto as a way of circumventing international penalties and collecting funds for the Pyongyang (the country's capital city) regime.

Jamie Dimon, CEO and Chairman at JPMorgan Chase Chase & Co., managed to make quite a big fuss around cryptocurrencies, when he said last year that Bitcoin is a fraud. However, now he has changed his mind.