The US Treasury sanctioned two people and four entities involved in what it says was a computer ring managed by North Korea which infiltrated cryptographic companies, aimed at exploiting them.
The Bureau of the Treasury of Foreign Active Control (OFAC) said on Tuesday that it had sanctioned the song of North Korea, Kum Hyok, for having pretended to stole information from American citizens to use as alias and by giving it to hired foreign IT workers who are looking for jobs in American companies.
OFAC also sanctioned the Russian National Gayk ASATRYAN for allegedly used its companies to employ dozens of North Korean IT workers under the long-term agreements which it signed with North Korean commercial companies from 2024.
An increasing number of workers of fraudulent technology with links with North Korea, officially the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (RPDC), have expanded their infiltration operations, with an April Google report noting that the regimes infrastructure has spread throughout the world.
“The Treasury remains determined to use all the tools available to disrupt the efforts of the KIM regime to bypass the sanctions thanks to its flight of digital assets, an attempted identity of the Americans and to malicious cyberattacks,” said Michael Faulkender, the assistant secretary of the Treasury.
Thousands of IT workers target rich countries to finance the missile program
OFAC has said that North Korea aims to generate income for its ballistic missile programs by deploying a workforce to thousands of highly qualified IT workers from around the world, most of which are located in China and Russia.
The workforce mainly targets employers located in richer countries and uses various traditional and industry networking platforms, OFAC said.
The sanctions mean all the American assets linked to the Asatryan, the song and the four Russian entities also named are frozen. It is also now illegal for people in the United States to carry out financial transactions or make trade with them under the threat of civil and criminal sanctions.
North Korea moving away from hacks
North Korea was known for its high -level hacks through teams such as the Lazare group, and is responsible for some of the largest cryptographic hacks ever recorded, such as the feat of $ 1.5 billion in February.
However, the Blockchain Intelligence Company, TRM Labs, said on Tuesday that it was starting to change tactics.
“While foreign exchange violations remain significant, operations related to PRDC move more and more towards the generation of revenues based on deception, including the infiltration of IT workers,” said the company.
TRM Labs estimates that bad players aligned by North Korea are responsible for $ 1.6 billion on the $ 2.1 billion stolen out of 75 hacks and cryptographic exploits in the first half of 2025.
The United States retracts from North Korean IT workers
The American authorities have increasingly repressed the fraudulent regimes of North Korean IT workers this year.
In relation: North Korea targets cryptographic workers with new malicious information thieves
On June 30, four North Korean nationals were accused of wire fraud and money laundering after having passed away workers from American and Serbian blockchain companies.
Meanwhile, on June 5, the United States Ministry of Justice said it was trying to seize $ 7.74 million in frozen crypto allegedly won by North Korean IT workers using false identities and working in blockchain companies as a distance entrepreneurs.
Review: Korea of Crypto Pirates from North Korea TES Chatgpt, Malaysia Road Money Siphone: Asia Express
