Arafat Hasan: The United States government has charged and sanctioned a North Korean man for the 2017 global WannaCry ransomware cyberattack and the 2014 cyberassault on Sony Corp.
The US government also alleged that the North Korean hacker broke into Bangladesh Bank in 2016, as per a criminal complaint.
The charges are part of a strategy by the US government to deter future cyberattacks by naming and shaming the alleged perpetrators.
According to the complaint, Park Jin Hyok worked as part of a team of hackers, also known as the ‘Lazarus Group’, to try to breach multiple other US businesses. In 2016 and 2017, Park’s targets included defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp, although the complaint denied any evidence that Lockheed was breached.
The US Treasury Department has imposed sanctions against Park and the Chinese-based front company he worked for, Chosun Expo.
The North Korean mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment made by Reuters.
In 2014, US officials claimed unnamed North Korean hackers were responsible for a major cyber intrusion into Sony, which resulted in leaked internal documents and data being destroyed.
The attacks came after Pyongyang sent a letter to the United Nations, demanding that Sony not move forward with the movie “The Interview” that portrayed the US-backed assassination of a character made to look like North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
-Source: Reuters
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