North Korea’s increasing use of crypto heists to fund nukes worries US

North Korea began aggressively targeting the financial sector, specifically digital currency, following the rise of bitcoin in the mid-2010s and the expansion of U.S. and U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang, said Jason Bartlett, a research associate for the energy, economics and security program at CNAS.

“Right now, when we’re thinking about North Korea and cyber, there is this big focus on the global financial services, mainly because North Korea needs money compared to other U.S. cyber adversaries like Iran, China and Russia,” he said.

Bartlett added that North Korea also likely turned to crypto because it wasn’t well regulated and understood at the time, making it easier for the East Asian country to exploit it for its own gains.

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