Korea JoongAng Daily, a North Korean news publication, announced that North Korean hackers tried, but failed to steal Bitcoin from several domestic exchanges.
According to the North Korean magazine, the hackers used “spear-phishing”, which basically means that the criminals sent what looked like “innocuous” emails that actually contained malicious software that harmed the host’s computer.
Korea JoongAng Daily reported:
“The hackers sent 10 emails to 25 workers each at four different bitcoin exchanges, disguising themselves as officials from South Korean public institutions such as the police, prosecution, Seoul city government or Financial Security Institute. But none of the recipients opened their emails. If they had, said police, their computers would have been infected with a virus, enabling the hackers to infiltrate the companies’ network systems.”
The fake email addresses were from different points, of which the biggest one is Naver and Gmail.
The Korean magazine also reports:
“On Tuesday, Liberty Korea Party Rep. Shim Jae-cheol, a member of the parliamentary Strategy and Finance Committee, said North Korea tried to hack South Korea’s central bank on “multiple occasions” this year as well, but failed. Local defense contractors, on their part, are trying to block any possible attack in the future by separating their internal network systems from external web services, said Moon Sang-gyun, spokesman for the National Defense Ministry.”