South Korean authorities believe North Korean hackers working with the cyber government have attacked at least 892 foreign policy experts in the country, an Engadget report reveals.
The runners are focused on thinking and academic industry groups, starting in April. The attack included spear phishing e-mails that claimed to be from people in the South Korean political system.
Those emails contain links to fake sites or viruses as attachments. And although their execution was not sophisticated, they managed to fool a few people.
This led to the theft of personal data, compromised email lists and 13 companies involved, two of which paid 2.5 million ($1980) in ransom.
It is estimated that North Korean hackers have stolen $1.72 billion in cryptocurrency since 2017 and surprisingly the country is not afraid of the recent crash in crypto value as it is also taking recent crypto ransoms .
Although hackers have managed to clean up their tracks all this time, cybersecurity researchers believe that the IP address of the hack is the same as that of the attack on Korean Hydro and Nuclear Power in 2014.