SEOUL – Police investigations have pointed to North Korea as responsible for recent attempts to hack South Korea’s virtual currency exchanges, a report said Wednesday.
They reached the conclusion after investigating cyberattacks on dozens of email accounts of employees at four local bitcoin exchanges, Yonhap news agency said.
North Korea is heavily sanctioned by the United Nations for its nuclear and missile programs and speculation has been mounting that the cash-strapped regime is turning to digital currency to obtain funds.
Police said the North Korean hackers, pretending to be security authorities, sent emails containing malware between July and August this year, according to Yonhap.
The emails were sent from the same IP address linked to previous North Korean hacking attempts against Seoul, police were quoted as saying.
