United States Congress Senators Tim Kaine (D-VA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) have urged the Biden administration to take steps to combat crypto-related serious US national security threats originating from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, better known as North Korea.
The lawmakers wrote in a letter on the third of August to the White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan; and the Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence of the United States Treasury Department, Brian E. Nelson, “We write to express our concern about the national security threat posed by North Korea’s reliance on digital assets to evade international sanctions and embargoes and fund its illegal weapons programs.”
The legislators ended their letter with a list of five queries about the Treasury’s “plans to tackle the serious national security threats posed by the Kim Jong Un dictated nation’s dependence on cryptocurrency.” The senators asked that the responses be presented to them by the sixteenth of August that year.
Details of the matter
The collectively put-together letter cites many sources as to the serious US national security threats perceived, such as Anne Neuberger, the White House Deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber and Emerging Technology, who indicated that more than half of North Korea’s entire nuclear missile program had been consistently funded by risks associated with crypto-currency and various other cyber-crimes. The senatorial letter also requests information on the players facilitating the trade of crypto assets for other assets, like raw materials which go into the manufacture of ballistic missiles, as well as where such actors are based and whether or not the administration is pursuing any action against them.
While expecting an answer, the lawmakers have specifically stressed certain parameters, “Given the pressing nature of this threat, we ask the Administration to provide details on its plan to stop North Korea from using digital assets to evade harsh sanctions and support its ambitions to project geopolitical power through nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.”
According to a study conducted by the United Nations in the month of February, North Korea has plundered more crypto assets in 2022 than in any other year ever hitherto. For instance, Chainalysis, a blockchain analytics business, discovered that North Korean-linked hackers, such as those associated with the infamous Lazarus Group, were especially vigilant last year. According to the data firm, they siphoned an estimated $1.7 billion in cryptocurrencies over various thefts.
Official Reactions
A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council declined to comment on the abovementioned letter but pointed to earlier statements by top officials stressing the situation and the need to do more to counteract it. A Treasury Department spokesperson also refrained from saying anything about the letter from the three Democrat senators but reminded all of the many previous steps of the Treasury Department aimed at limiting the serious US national security threats. In order to foil North Korea’s crypto-laundering efforts, several security policies include, inter alia, inescapable penalties on cryptocurrency processors and virtual currency wallets related to North Korean hacker groups.
The senators’ letter references a Wall Street Journal piece from June which reported that most US officials had found evidence regarding cyber-criminals from North Korea stealing over some $3 billion in crypto-related thefts since 2018 and that the money is currently being used to support over half of the dictatorial regime’s ballistic missile development.
According to US authorities and cybersecurity experts, North Korea has created what could essentially be called a ‘shadow workforce’ of thousands of tertiary sector employees based in countries throughout the globe, including China and Russia, who earn money—sometimes more than $300,000 per year—doing humdrum technical tasks in numerous business processing outputs. However, investigators claim that this huge load of personnel is frequently related to the regime’s hacking operations, doing all the illegal bidding for their political overlords and bureaucrats.
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