North Korea made $2bn from cyber crime and spent it on weapons, claims UN.

North Korea used to raise funds via counterfeit money, and by producing and distributing amphetamines.

The North Korean government has made $2 billion from cyber attacks against foreign financial institutions - and spent the money on its weapons programme.

That's according to an unpublished United Nations report, seen by Reuters, which concludes that the North Korean government has been spending the money generated from cyber attacks on weapons of mass destruction.

The confidential UN report was prepared by a team of independent experts, who submitted it to the UN Security Council North Korea sanctions committee last week.

The authors of the report claimed to have monitored North Korea's compliance over six months and found that it had repeatedly launched sophisticated and widespread attacks to steal funds from overseas banks and cryptocurrency exchanges to support its weapons programmes. The country also used cyberspace to launder the stolen money.


By Dev Kundaliva.
Full story at Computing.