In the latest series of reports, it has been revealed that North Korean Lazarus Group were targetting cryptocurrency holdings in the United Kingdom as well as other countries. At the same time, the United Nations has asked people to stay away from an upcoming conference in the closed-off country.
Cryptocurrency scams have taken up a lot of air time recently with each one being more devious and massive than the last. This has also been one of the main reasons why a lot of institutions refrain from entering the decentralized ecosystem.
The Lazarus Group is a cult hacker organization known for audacious cyber heists around the world. The group, which is based out of North Korea and as per sources, were accused of launching waves of attacks on several regions in a bid to collect massive amounts of cryptocurrencies. Some have even claimed that the stolen capital will be used to fund the autocratic regime run by Kim Jong-Un.
Although Pyongyang has denied all said allegations, investigations are still being conducted to confirm the actual source and perpetrators. Kaspersky Labs, the cybersecurity company had assigned researchers to track the fund trial. They discovered that the UK was one of several countries to be hit with this menace, a list that also included Poland, Russia and China.
Kaspersky confirmed that a majority of the victims were linked to crypto business entities. Hackers usually prefer cryptocurrencies because legal agencies have no way of tracking such expenditure of transfers.
The Lazarus group has also dabbled in spreading a malware called UnionCCryptoTrader via the popular messaging platform Telegram. The malware usually targets critical data on the user’s phone rendering all information privy to phishing. The scares about the cyber attacks were not the only events connected to North Korea.
Yesterday, the United Nations issued a warning to proposed visitors attending the NK CryptoCon in North Korea. The regulatory body stated that going to the conference would be a direct sanctions violation, according to a confidential report due to be submitted to the UNSC.
The conference website clearly pointed out that any citizens could enter the premises except for natives from South Korea, Japan and Israel. This message was clearly of paramount importance because it was displayed on the conference website saying:
“We will provide a paper visa separated from your passport, so there will be no evidence of your entry to the country. Your participation will never be disclosed from our side unless you publicize it on your own.”
The warning came directly in conjunction with reports about Lazarus and how the funds were channelled to run shady deals. The investigations were conducted by independent UN experts who passed the information onto the General Assembly.
