Cybersecurity

U.S. Government Confirms ‘Malicious’ New Malware Threat: Beware—This Is The WannaCry Hackers Again

If it isn’t cybersecurity alerts of malware from one despotic regime, it’s warnings relating to another. Just as the world settles down post the Iranian cyber-hype in the aftermath of Suleimani, now multiple U.S. government agencies have warned of a newly intensifying threat from North Korea. Some of the malware is new and some of it is updated. And this particular state-sponsored threat group has pretty terrifying form—remember WannaCry?

As almost always these days, the hackers have mounted a phishing campaign to exploit weaknesses in non-hardened, non-governmental sectors. Defensive holes, lack of patching, network and IoT vulnerabilities and poor user training come to the fore. The objective is not political, it’s financial. The Pyongyang regime remains convinced that cyber attacks on commercial targets can help replenish the funds of the sanctions-stricken country.

“This malware,” says the U.S. government, “is currently used for phishing and remote access by [North Korean] cyber actors to conduct illegal activity, steal funds and evade sanctions.”