The Japanese police, alongside other authorities, have hinted that the North Korean hacker group, Lazarus, is targeting Japanese-based crypto asset-related companies in its attacks. The National Police Agency, the Financial Services Agency, and the National Center of Incident Readiness and Strategy for Cybersecurity have issued this warning in a publication released on Saturday.
According to a senior NPA official, the Lazarus Group sends phishing emails to employees of crypto asset companies, often pretending to be an executive of the company to gain access to the company’s network and steal its assets through the malware hidden in the message to infect the computer.
The Japanese authorities has called on crypto asset companies to keep their secret keys connected to their funds in confidential data separate from the internet. Employees should also think twice before clicking on links or other email attachments.
Prior to now, some companies have had their internal systems hacked, and their crypto assets were stolen. This spawned the Japanese security outfit into action, leading them to identify the Lazarus Group as the entity responsible for the attacks.
Although attacks like this, perpetrated by overseas hackers go mostly untraced and unidentified, the Japanese government has adopted a method called “public attribution,” which has been used to trace all forms of cyber-attacks. It has also proved to be an effective tool for mitigating these attacks.
What you should know about Lazarus
Lazarus is the pseudonym for a hacking group closely affiliated with North Korea’s reconnaissance general bureau and various cyber-attacks have been attributed to this group. One of the attacks is the WannaCry ransomware attack that took place in May 2017, targeting banks and other financial institutions across the globe. In addition, earlier this year in April, the FBI pinned the theft of cryptocurrency worth about ¥78 billion on Lazarus and other hackers.
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