The Australian government has imposed financial sanctions on crypto funds used for North Korea’s cybercriminal activities. Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong made the development known via a press release on Thursday. In the statement, Wong noted that the North Korean scale of involvement in malicious cyber-enabled activities, which includes cryptocurrency theft, fraudulent IT work, and espionage, is quite alarming. 

As part of the sanctions, the Australian government also imposed travel bans on four individuals engaged in cybercrime to support and fund North Korea’s unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs. According to the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team (MSMT), these individuals reportedly have deep links with malicious cyber activities. 

Australian MSMT report that North Korean hackers stole $1.9 billion worth of crypto in 2024 alone

According to Australian MSMT reports, the North Korean cyber actors siphoned $1.9 billion worth of cryptocurrency assets from companies in 2024 alone. The actors then used a global network of North Korean nationals and foreign facilitators to launder stolen digital assets. In addition, the North Korean officials then used cryptocurrencies to sell and transfer military equipment and raw munitions material such as copper.

Over the last few years, the North Korean actors have been active in hacking and siphoning cryptocurrency exchanges digital assets. In May 2024, it hacked a Japan-based crypto exchange, DMM group. The hack resulted resulted in the loss of 4,502.9 BTC ($102,894.00), worth about $308 million at the time.

Earlier this year, Bybit exchange witnessed one of the biggest exchanges in history. The North Korean actors exploited a private key leak in Bybit’s hot wallet system and stole about 400,000 Ethereum which is worth over $1.4B. The hackers later converted the stolen Ethereum into Bitcoin to aid its movement.

On Monday, Balancer, a decentralized finance protocol, alongside multiple Ethereum, Base, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism and others suffered an exploitation which led to the loss of over $128.6 million worth of crypto assets. On Tuesday, Binbits reported that another decentralized finance suffered an exploitation leading to the loss of over $93 million from its treasury.

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