The British government has targeted North Korea as a perpetrator of the attack by the ransomware-type virus that victimized thousands of public and private institutions, within which even such large companies were affected, in May this year. This further spread worldwide, affecting Telefonica, hospitals, and hundreds of thousands of computers.
Suspicions at the time pointed toward North Korea, but now, the British security minister has declared on BBC Radio 4 stating that “North Korea is the state involved in this global attack.” The United Kingdom, in particular, was one of the countries most affected by ransomware.
WannaCry, like any other ransomware, blocked all files on the infected computer until the user made a payment, in this case in Bitcoins, and they left no trace. Once you pay, in theory, you are given a key with which you can recover your files.
The North Korean government behind WannaCry Virus
According to an investigation by the National Audit Office (NAO), WannaCry was the biggest attack on the NHS, the Health Service of the United Kingdom. The ransomware was possible for the leaked NSA tools with which they could enter any computer in the world. Microsoft, because of that, blamed the US Security Agency for the attack and for not providing enough protection.
It is not the only international crime attributed to him by the government of Kim Jong-un: it is also estimated that the robberies of millions of dollars in bitcoins for months had been made by the North Korean government itself. According to estimates, North Korea would report about 100 million won ($ 90,000) monthly credited to this method.
It would be a form of financing to be able to clean up their accounts after the blockade that has suffered on the part of certain countries, which have stopped trading with it for being sanctioned by the UN. However, the amount lost with blockades is much greater: billions of dollars only from the coal industry.
