North Korean hacker steals 120 billion won from Mexican bank and transfers money to South Korea… Who is the recipient?

The Washington Post (WP) reported on the 17th (local time) that the US Department of Justice prosecuted three hackers from the North Korean People’s Army Reconnaissance Office for committing cyber attacks and financial crimes from 2014 to last year.

The WP quoted the Ministry of Justice’s announcement, saying that the value of foreign currency and cryptocurrency that they attempted to steal through hacking from China, Russia, Singapore and other countries around the world reached 1.3 billion dollars (about 1.4 trillion won).

“They use keyboards instead of guns to steal electronic payments,” said John Demus, Assistant Secretary for National Security at Justice.

In a complaint filed by the Ministry of Justice in December last year, it stated that “they tried to advance the strategic and financial interests of the North Korean regime and Kim Jong-un.”

The Ministry of Justice revealed their real names, including Jeon Chang-hyuk (32), Kim Il (27), and Park Jin-hyuk (37), in the press release. I also attached a wanted flyer with a photo of my face. Various methods of cyber attacks also appear in the complaint.

In 2015-2019, the Reconnaissance Office accessed the banking systems of Vietnam, Bangladesh, Taiwan, Mexico, and Malta, and hacked into the code of the payment system between international banks by injecting malicious codes. North Korean hackers also accessed the Mexican Export-Import Banking System in January 2018 and remitted a total of 110 million dollars (120 billion won) to’bank accounts in Korea’. Recognizing this, the Export-Import Bank of Mexico announced in October of the same year that it, in cooperation with other banks, blocked funds before withdrawal. It is known that the Korean financial authorities have also worked together.

Prior to this, in 2017, they planted’ransomware’ and asked for money as a condition to release it.

In addition, in June of the same year, a Korean cryptocurrency trading company system was infected with ransomware and requested 16 million dollars (about 17.7 billion won), and personal information was leaked when rejected.

In addition, in August 2017, he hacked a casino in a Central American country and threatened to “leak customer information” to steal $2.3 million (2.5 billion won), and there was a case of withdrawing money from an ATM by manipulating a program. . In addition, in August of last year, he accessed a network of financial services companies in New York and stole cryptocurrencies worth about $11.8 million (about 13 billion won).

State Department spokesman Ned Price said on the day that “we will take into account North Korea’s malicious activities and threats as a whole in the review of North Korea policy.”

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