FBI Recovers $500K Stolen Assets From North Korean Hackers

• The North Korean gang threatened to shut down a Kansas hospital’s servers.
• Monaco stated that officials were able to take these assets only a few weeks ago.

North Korean state-sponsored hackers tried to damage an American hospital last year. Still, the FBI and the Justice Department stopped them, seizing $500,000 in cryptocurrencies and extorting money. Lisa O Monaco, the DOJ’s Deputy Attorney General, commented on Tuesday.

According to Monaco, the North Korean gang threatened to shut down a Kansas hospital’s servers unless a ransom was paid in 2021. It was only after the cyber crooks threatened to double the ransom that the hospital’s employees decided to pay up. An official announcement from the Department of Justice did not indicate if the ransom was paid in cryptocurrencies.

Rising Attacks by North Korean Hackers

As reported in January, North Korean government-sponsored cybercriminals stole $400 million in Bitcoin and Ether last year. In April, the US government issued a cybersecurity alert highlighting North Korean criminal behavior in the crypto realm.

According to the statement from Monaco, the FBI and DOJ were able to track the hacker’s movements and discover the whereabouts of the stolen cryptocurrency in the accounts of China-based money launderers that assist North Korean hackers regularly.

In the 2021 Colonial Pipeline assault, officials in the United States recovered Bitcoin using similar methods. Additionally, they found several ransom payments, including one from a Colorado hospital and half a million dollars worth of stolen cryptocurrencies. Hackers generally demand ransom in Bitcoin or a privacy coin, such as Monero, but the DOJ didn’t identify which currency they were using. Monaco stated that officials were able to take these assets only a few weeks ago.

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