North Korean Lazarus Group’s $1.2M Transaction: Analysis
Photo Credits to COINTELEGRAPH
Dedicated to John V and Micheal Z: Thank you for teaching me about Cyber and also telling me to blog!
Over the past three years, North Korea’s Lazarus Group was able to successfully acquire $3 Billion USD worth of cryptocurrency. Very recently, transferred this group just transferred over $1.2 million into a crypto wallet. This remarkable feat reveals North Korea’s capabilities as a hermit kingdom and shows their deeper motivation to survive. This article analyzes the Lazarus Group and, for the first time in Warrior Insights, discusses the newest battlefield that military commanders must take into account: Cyberspace.
Cryptocurrency
Cryptocurrency is a virtual currency that is decentralized. It has picked up traction the past few years because of the explosion of Bitcoin. While some claimed it was the future of currency acquire, its use on the battlefield is tremendous. It is not regulated through third party institutions, which makes it appealing to insurgent or hostile nation forces. The ability to make black market purchases to acquire weapons, slaves, or logistics is easier, because without a third party institution, cryptocurrency transactions can “fly under the radar.” The current Israel-Palestine conflict was able to fundraise a significant amount of money for Hamas, but also fund cryptocurrency. These newly found assets can assist Hamas in acquiring more weapons and possibly mercenaries to resist Israel’s invasion of Gaza.
Traditional uses of currency involves exchanging through financial institutions. This serves as a major problem, since certain transactions can be traced easier than cryptocurrency, it leaves behind a trail of evidence that counterinsurgent forces can utilize to dismantle operations completely. Insurgent forces must rely on a series of methods to remove any trails. One way is through money laundering. This tactic involves having to consistently move ill acquired funds consistently through financial institutions.
Another added benefit is the acquisition of black market items. The Dark Web, serves as a safe haven for insurgent activity. Amazon won’t display nuclear weapons or machine guns on their website, but on the Dark Web, anything and everything is available. From Child Pornography to hitman-for hire, the Dark Web has the capability to provide materials unavailable to the general web. Access to the Dark Web requires a series of steps that makes it near impossible to trace. Transactions through this are done through cryptocurrency that provides another layer of difficulty to trace.
Cyberspace and Hackers
The advent of the internet was groundbreaking and revolutionized humanity. Centuries of research and information became available to the public. As the internet became more accessible, our dependency as a society grew. Now, the Internet is used for almost everything in daily life.
The Russian-Ukraine war, essentially, became one of the first conventional wars that involved social media and advanced technology. Tik toks were used to educate the Ukrainian public to steal Russian vehicles and handcraft Molotov cocktails. Ukrainian women used dating apps to find Russian positions. Soldiers used Go-Pro technology to record combat performance and analyze. Russian forces have also used the internet to demoralize the West, into believing the war is unwinnable and spread Kremlin propaganda in an attempt to paint the Ukrainian Jewish President as a Neo-Nazi.
The internet is rife with individuals seeking to exploit weaknesses and utilize it to their benefit. Hacking groups pose as a primary threat to cyberspace. The United States has realized this and even developed a cyber branch. Often working as a team, these individuals can serve as lone wolves or an extension of an insurgent group or state actor. Uncovering information, acquiring funds and destroying cyber capabilities is a small list of what these groups are able to do.
One famous example of a hacker group was The Impact Team. This group doxxed Ashley Madison, a website dedicated to married men and women looking to have an affair. This Impact Team released sensitive information of its client list and as a result, caused significant damage in releasing the li
领英推荐
t.
North Korea
North Korea, is a hermit kingdom and has Soviet-era capabilities. The average life for the North Korean is haunted by starvation. Access to the outside world is limited and a view from space indicates the lack of electricity, outside the North Korean capital Pyongyang. It’s military composes a large standing army that consistently trains, in the hopes of reunifying the country and removing the United States from the Peninsula.
While a conventional war against South Korea would be disastrous, North Korean capabilities cannot be underestimated. North Korea has the capability to perform complex operations to execute their intended mission. One of their most complex missions they executed was the assassination of Kim Jong Nam, a potential heir and threat to Kim Jong Un. This assassination involved tricking two females to smear VX nerve agent to Kim Yo Jong, and it was successful.
Below is the summarized version of events from The Guardian”
The morning of 13 February 2017 was like any other at Kuala Lumpur’s hectic international airport terminal so it would have been easy to miss a lone North Korean man, clad in a blue polo shirt and jeans, heading to check into his flight to Macau.
As he ambled past a column, a backpack slung over one shoulder, a woman approached him and wiped an oily substance on his face before disappearing, her unusual actions caught on CCTV. Moments later, another woman came from behind and covered his eyes with her hands. She then slid them down over his mouth, quickly apologised and walked away.
Less than 20 minutes later the man was dead, the victim of an assassination carried out with the nerve agent VX, one of the most deadly chemical weapons in the world.
The traveller was Kim Jong-nam, half brother of?Kim Jong-un?and one-time heir to the North Korean leadership who had since fallen out of favour with his powerful family. As the attack was carried out, in scenes that would not be out of place in a James Bond film, at least four North Korean agents were hiding nearby to witness the public killing and ready with a back-up plan if anything went wrong.
Its hacker group is known as the Lazarus Group. It’s capabilities and the group itself is shrouded in secrecy. However, what little information is known, reveals a complex organization that has stolen a significant amount of finances and severely damaged financial institutions. This group stands as a perfect asymmetrical threat. It is believed that hackers are sent to China, to learn advanced capabilities for the Kim regime. Recently, at the time of publication this group has moved significant funds, that could potentially reveal a larger operation.
Analysis
Conventionally North Korea is weak, unconventionally North Korea poses a major threat to the international community. In Liu of a weaker populace and nation, it has resorted to investing in human capital. One of the deadliest weapons that a nation can invest in. The complex operations needed to pull this off, reveals that North Korea has the capability to damage infrastructure, all without leaving the hermit kingdom entirely.
Military commanders, especially those in the United States, must be aware of this ongoing threat. In Unconventional War, the problem lies in turning strength into weakness. The United States boasts the most powerful conventional force, with force capability projections across the globe. North Korea, is aware of this and as a result, is trying to increase its cyber operations and spying capabilities. The end product is a small group of elite individuals that can pose a threat to US hegemony. While the average North Korea soldier might be significant weaker to its counterpart, the same cannot be said for its advanced cyber capabilities. While the United States initiated a cyber branch, North Korea spent years prior honing on dominating cyberspace.