North Korea’s Lazarus tried major cyberattack in South Korea in 2022
Seoul, Apr 18 (EFE).- The Lazarus group, linked to North Korea, tried last year to launch a large-scale cyberattack in South Korea by hacking into computers belonging to 61 different institutions, police reported Tuesday.
The group, famous for its 2014 attack on the Hollywood studio Sony Pictures, penetrated 207 different South Korean devices using a so-called “watering hole attack,” in which a third-party website that members of the attacked organization visit is infected with malware.
In this case, Lazarus infected the distributor of security software that is used to install “plug-ins” that make it possible to carry out, for example, banking operations in a secure manner, according to police.
Every time one of the computers that had this security program then visited the page of a specific media outlet – through which the “watering hole attack” was carried out – the code was automatically installed through the software.
According to police, Lazarus planned to turn hundreds of computers into “zombie computers” to carry out a large-scale attack, but the operation was discovered and disrupted in time by authorities.
In 2022, in addition to attempting to carry out this attack, Lazarus was the author of the biggest cyber heist of the year by taking more than $ 600 million from online video game “Axie infinity,” according to a United Nations report.
The group allegedly reports to the General Reconnaissance Office, in charge of clandestine operations of the North Korean regime. EFE
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