US, South Korea and Japan launch group to deal with North Korea hacking

The US, South Korea and Japan have determined to ascertain a high-level consultative physique on cyber points, primarily to deal with North Korea’s cyber actions, the workplace of South Korea’s president introduced on Monday.

The primary objective of the group, which is able to meet on a quarterly foundation, is to strengthen “sensible joint response capabilities to international cyber threats,” in keeping with the presidential workplace’s announcement.

This consists of “collectively getting ready measures to dam cyber actions which might be abused as a serious supply of funds for North Korea’s weapons improvement, equivalent to nuclear weapons and WMD.”

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Past the three international locations, a senior South Korean nationwide safety official met with their counterpart from Australia to determine to type a bilateral working group to assist determine frequent threats and coordinate the international locations’ responses.

It follows the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation in August attributing three current hacks concentrating on cryptocurrency platforms to a risk actor believed to be sponsored by the North Korean authorities.

The FBI beforehand attributed the $100 million hack of Concord’s Horizon bridge and the $600 million hack of Sky Mavis’ Ronin Bridge to the identical North Korean hackers.

Blockchain analysis agency Chainalysis discovered that 2022 was a banner yr for hackers concentrating on cryptocurrency corporations, with about $3.8 billion in complete stolen from corporations within the trade, up from $3.3 billion in 2021.

Chainalysis famous that a lot of the hacking exercise was led by teams related to the North Korean army, which has prioritized cryptocurrency hacks in an effort to fund its nuclear weapons program.

Cyber cooperation amongst liberal democracies within the Pacific has picked up tempo lately, partially in response to North Korean operations, however with a selected view on countering alleged widespread exercise from Chinese language actors.

The Biden administration final yr introduced a Quad Cybersecurity Partnership involving the U.S., India, Japan and Australia, that can see the international locations work collectively on a number of initiatives centered round fortifying software program, provide chains and person knowledge.

The joint transfer was criticized closely by Chinese language officers, who informed CNN that the U.S. was making an attempt to stoke “geopolitical rivalry” with an “Indo-Pacific NATO.”