The regime begins screening between 150 and 200 middle school students annually to cultivate them through top universities into dedicated digital warfare operatives. Those inducted into military cyber units receive specialized instruction in cryptocurrency protocols, reverse-engineering foreign hardware, and foreign languages. Although Pyongyang dismisses allegations of orchestrating historic crypto heists as political provocations, external investigators continue to tie massive thefts directly to state-backed groups like TraderTraitor.
Key points
North Korea relies on an early-education pipeline that recruits children aged 11 or 12 fo…: North Korea relies on an early-education pipeline that recruits children aged 11 or 12 for specialized cyber training.
The regime offers elite privileges such as ruling party membership and foreign travel to…: The regime offers elite privileges such as ruling party membership and foreign travel to incentivize state-sponsored hackers.
Investigators have linked major cryptocurrency heists to specialized state hacking units…: Investigators have linked major cryptocurrency heists to specialized state hacking units like the TraderTraitor collective.
Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1
North Korea identifies top students from a young age, training a select few for cyber operations and rewarding them with perks such as spacious apartments and huge hard currency awards, defectors and analysts say.
SEOUL: North Korea rewards its top hackers, tasked with heists like the Binance crypto hack that netted US$6.3 billion, with perks such as a spacious apartment in the capital of Pyongyang and huge hard currency awards, despite gruelling hours of work.
Leader Kim Jong Un has assembled an army of world-class hackers using such incentives in a programme more than a decade old that picks 200 of the smartest middle school students each year to study computer engineering, defectors and analysts say.
A fraction eventually become hackers in an investment that has paid off dramatically, as the group has evolved from the early days when it ran illegal gambling websites to pulling off the world's biggest cyber heist last month.
"They are actually one of Kim Jong Un's secret weapons," said Kim Heung-kwang, a North Korean defector who trained hackers of behalf of the state before…
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