North Korea Linked to Digital Attacks on Global Banks

NYT ^ | MAY 26, 2016 | NICOLE PERLROTH and MICHAEL CORKERY

[TigerLikesRooster]

North Korea Linked to Digital Attacks on Global Banks

By NICOLE PERLROTH and MICHAEL CORKERY

MAY 26, 2016

Security researchers have tied the recent spate of digital breaches on Asian banks to North Korea, in what they say appears to be the first known case of a nation using digital attacks for financial gain.

In three recent attacks on banks, researchers working for the digital security firm Symantec said, the thieves deployed a rare piece of code that had been seen in only two previous cases: the hacking attack at Sony Pictures in December 2014 and attacks on banks and media companies in South Korea in 2013. Government officials in the United States and South Korea have blamed those attacks on North Korea, though they have not provided independent verification.

On Thursday, the Symantec researchers said they had uncovered evidence linking an attack at a bank in the Philippines last October with attacks on Tien Phong Bank in Vietnam in December and one in February on the central bank of Bangladesh that resulted in the theft of more than $81 million.

“If you believe North Korea was behind those attacks, then the bank attacks were also the work of North Korea,” said Eric Chien, a security researcher at Symantec, who found that identical code was used across all three attacks.

[TigerLikesRooster]

It is clear that N. Korean regime is economically squeezed. Interesting things develop when it happens. Aside from finding desperate and creative ways to get new sources of revenue, they relent on their grip on domestic markets so that general population is better able to fend for themselves. This was the case back when the massive famine swept the nation in 1990's. Regime realized that they could not feed their people and let them fend for themselves, which led to birth of limited (unsanctioned) markets in the country side.

On the other hand, N. Korean regime tends to tighten its grip on markets when sanctions are loosening and economic hardship is easing. It is a kind of ironic way the economic sanction works. N. Korean state inches toward accommodating markets only when it has no other choice.

[TigerLikesRooster]

P!

[dsc]

Shocking.

[StoneWall Brigade]

This is a pure act of war. We must respond by shutting down the North’s ability to this.

[knarf]

ANONYMOUS HAS ALREADY TAKEN CREDIT

[Fedora]

"Security researchers have tied the recent spate of digital breaches on Asian banks to North Korea, in what they say appears to be the first known case of a nation using digital attacks for financial gain."

Not the first known case. . .

Kevin D. Freeman, Secret Weapon: How Economic Terrorism Brought Down the U.S. Stock Market and Why It can Happen Again