Report: North Korea has stolen $2 billion through cyber attacks to fund weapons program


A new United Nations report states that North Korea is using "widespread and increasingly sophisticated" cyberattacks to steal money in order to fund its weapons of mass destruction programs, Reuters says.
The confidential report, compiled by a group of independent experts and obtained by Reuters on Monday, was submitted last week to the U.N. Security Council's North Korea sanctions committee. The report said that by stealing money from banks and cryptocurrency exchanges, North Korea has brought in an estimated $2 billion.
The attacks are becoming harder to trace, Reuters reports, and the experts are investigating at least 35 incidents in 17 countries. These cyber actors are reportedly operating under the direction of the Reconnaissance General Bureau, North Korea's top military intelligence agency.
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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