BitCoins To Bombs: North Korea Funds Military With Billions In Stolen Cryptocurrency

North Korean state-linked APT groups (notably Lazarus/APT38 and related clusters) have reportedly stolen over $3 billion in cryptocurrency since 2017—with $1.7 billion in 2022—using sophisticated campaigns against exchanges and crypto services worldwide. Attack methods include spearphishing (often via recruitment lures), strategic web compromise, and trojanized DeFi applications; theft proceeds are laundered through an extensive network to finance the regime and its military, and attacks continued into 2023 with multi-million-dollar heists.