North Korea
Woman gets 8 years for aiding North Koreans infiltrate 300 US firms
Christina Marie Chapman, a 50-year-old woman from Arizona, was sentenced to 102 months in prison after pleading guilty to her involvement in a scheme that enabled North Korean IT workers to infiltrate 309 U.S. companies. Chapman was charged in May 2024, together with Ukrainian citizen Oleksandr Didenko, with aggravated identity theft, conspiracy to defraud the United States, […]
North Korean XORIndex malware hidden in 67 malicious npm packages
North Korean threat actors planted 67 malicious packages in the Node Package Manager (npm) online repository to deliver a new malware loader called XORIndex to developer systems. The packages collectively count more than 17,000 downloads and were discovered by researchers at package security platform Socket, who assess them to be part of the continued Contagious Interview operation. Socket researchers […]
Treasury sanctions North Korean over IT worker malware scheme
The U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned cyber actor Song Kum Hyok for his association with North Korea’s hacking group Andariel and for facilitating IT worker schemes that generated revenue for the Pyongyang regime. Considered a sub-cluster of the Lazarus group linked to North Korea’s Reconnaissance General Bureau, the Andariel state actor is focused mostly on financially-motivated […]
NimDoor crypto-theft macOS malware revives itself when killed
North Korean state-backed hackers have been using a new family of macOS malware called NimDoor in a campaign that targets web3 and cryptocurrency organizations. Researchers analyzing the payloads discovered that the attacker relied on unusual techniques and a previously unseen signal-based persistence mechanism. The attack chain, which involves contacting victims via Telegram and luring them into running […]
US disrupts North Korean IT worker “laptop farm” scheme in 16 states
The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) announced coordinated law enforcement actions against North Korean government’s fund raising operations using remote IT workers. North Korean workers use stolen or fake identities created with the help of AI tools to get hired by more than 100 companies in the U.S., believing they employed experts from other Asian countries […]
New wave of ‘fake interviews’ use 35 npm packages to spread malware
A new wave of North Korea’s ‘Contagious Interview’ campaign is targeting job seekers with malicious npm packages that infect dev’s devices with infostealers and backdoors. The packages were discovered by Socket Threat Research, which reports they load the BeaverTail info-stealer and InvisibleFerret backdoor on victims’ machines, two well-documented payloads associated with DPRK actors. The latest attack wave uses […]
BitoPro exchange links Lazarus hackers to $11 million crypto heist
The Taiwanese cryptocurrency exchange BitoPro claims the North Korean hacking group Lazarus is behind a cyberattack that led to the theft of $11,000,000 worth of cryptocurrency on May 8, 2025. The company has attributed the attack to Lazarus based on the evidence recovered from its internal investigations. It notes that the attack patterns and methodology […]
North Korean hackers deepfake execs in Zoom call to spread Mac malware
The North Korean BlueNoroff hacking group is deepfaking company executives during Zoom calls to trick employees into installing custom malware on their macOS devices. BlueNoroff (aka Sapphire Sleet or TA444) is a North Korean advanced persistent threat (APT) group known for conducting cryptocurrency theft attacks using Windows and Mac malware. Huntress researchers uncovered a new BlueNoroff […]
North Korea ramps up cyberspying in Ukraine to assess war risk
The state-backed North Korean threat group Konni (Opal Sleet, TA406) was observed targeting Ukrainian government entities in intelligence collection operations. The attackers use phishing emails that impersonate think tanks, referencing important political events or military developments to lure their targets. Proofpoint researchers who discovered the activity in February 2025 suggest that it’s likely an effort […]
Lazarus hackers breach six companies in watering hole attacks
In a recent espionage campaign, the infamous North Korean threat group Lazarus targeted multiple organizations in the software, IT, finance, and telecommunications sectors in South Korea. The threat actor combined a watering hole attack strategy with an exploit for a vulnerability in a file transfer client that is required in South Korea to complete certain financial and […]