North Korea Arrests Hackers Who Stole From Its Own State Banks

It turns out even North Korea's regime has a cybercrime problem — and this time, the criminals were on the payroll. According to a report from Daily NK, North Korean authorities have arrested former state-sponsored cyber operators who allegedly turned their hacking skills against their own government, targeting two state-owned banks and using cryptocurrency to wash the stolen money.

This is a remarkable twist in a country that has long relied on elite hacker units — most notably the Lazarus Group — to steal billions in crypto from foreign exchanges and financial institutions. The irony here is thick: operatives who were likely trained by the regime to loot the outside world apparently decided to loot the inside world instead. That's a career pivot that did not end well for them.

Read more Bullish to Sell Three Equiniti Units to Siris in 2027 Deal →

Crypto's role in the scheme is worth noting. Digital assets have become the go-to tool for anyone trying to move dirty money across borders without triggering traditional banking red flags — and that's true whether you're a rogue nation-state or a disgruntled ex-government hacker. The decentralized, pseudonymous nature of crypto makes it attractive for laundering, though blockchain's public ledger also means transactions can sometimes be traced if investigators know where to look.

For Pyongyang, the arrests signal something interesting: the regime is apparently willing to prosecute insiders who steal from the state, even when those insiders were previously trusted cyber assets. It suggests the North Korean government is trying to maintain tight control over who benefits from illicit financial activity — and the answer is, essentially, only the state itself. Getting caught redirecting those funds inward is clearly treated as a serious betrayal.

This story is still developing, and details from inside North Korea are notoriously difficult to verify independently. Continue reading at Cointelegraph.