Widespread and sophisticated cyberattacks on banks and cryptocurrency exchanges funding N Korea missile tests – Report

North Korea is paying for its continued missile tests with “widespread and increasingly sophisticated” cyberattacks on banks and cryptocurrency exchanges, according to a new report to the U.N. Security Council, two diplomatic sources said.

NBC News on Monday said that the Security Council has been told Pyongyang may have generated what is estimated to be up to 2 billion dollars for its illegal weapons of mass destruction program, although they caution it is impossible to completely quantify the total amount because of North Korea’s ability to evade detection by using cyberspace “to launch increasingly sophisticated attacks to steal funds from financial institutions and cryptocurrency exchanges,” using cyberspace to launder the transactions.

The U.N. report, according to the diplomats, say these attacks permit the North “to generate income in ways that are harder to trace and subject to less government oversight and regulation than the traditional banking sector.”

Via NBC