A North Korean hacker stole sensitive data, including financial records, from a South Korean court’s computer network over a two-year period, Seoul police said.
According to police, the hacker stole 1,14 gigabytes of data from the court’s computer system from January 2021 to February 2023.
According to police, the hackers’ malware was found to have sent the stolen data, including the South Korean’s marriage and personal loan records, to “four domestic and four overseas servers” “before it was detected by antivirus software”.
Nuclear-armed North Korea has been blamed for major cyber attacks in the past. Seoul authorities have recovered and identified only 4.7 gigabytes of stolen data. It contains 5,171 documents related to personal loan rehabilitation cases.
Analysts say North Korea has stepped up its cyber attacks to earn foreign currency in the face of UN sanctions over its nuclear and missile programs.
According to Seoul, Tokyo and Washington, Pyongyang alone stole more than $1.7 billion in cryptocurrencies in 2022 and supported its weapons program by gathering information through malicious cyber activity.