South Korea was recently successful in preventing a cyber attack by the US-sanctioned Lazarus Group. Last year, the North Korea based and widely known crypto cybercrime organization attempted to access over two hundred computers that belonged to sixty-one South Korean institutions. After uncovering the activity, the South Korean police blocked the attempts, ultimately leading to no damage being done.

The National Police Agency (NPA) has stated that the water-hole attack method was used to infiltrate security software installed on the systems. To facilitate the hack, Lazarus had initially targeted South Korean firms that distribute the popular security plug-ins used for online banking and financial services, which is estimated to be used on over ten million computers in South Korea. Prior to the hack, the NPA declared that the group had already planned out how it was going to break into INISAFE, a company that develops security software. Thanks to the NPA's vigilance, their attempts were thwarted.

Lazarus Group is considered to be actively backed by the North Korean government, and is most notorious for the $620 million cryptocurrency theft from the NFT game, Axie Infinity. Currently, the group is being blamed for further major cyber-attacks, such as the WannaCry 2.0 ransomeware in 2017, the Bangladesh bank robbery in 2016 and the Sony Pictures Entertainment hack in 2014. Furthermore, Lazarus reportedly pilfered $400 million worth of digital assets in 2021 and $275 million from KuCoin crypto exchange.

The US Treasury Department went on to impose sanctions on Tornado Cash in August 2022, which is one of the most popular crypto mixers the group has used for swapping the stolen funds. This incident serves as a reminder that the threat of cybercriminals is increasingly becoming more pertinent and real, and the consequences of neglecting it could be detrimental.



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