All these days we have heard stories that North Korea was launching cyber attacks on its adversaries to steal digital currency to fulfill the nuclear ambitions of leader Kim Jong Un. Now, news is out that the country is training hackers as young as 10 to become the country’s future cyber warriors.
Kim is picking up his country’s Future Warrior Elite team by training primary school kids in different situations and digital war games.
And what’s interesting about the training is that only those kids who top their class in Math and Science are eligible to become a state sponsored hacking trainee and are whisked off to remote hacking schools where they are trained in accessing different tools and technology that are going to be launched against adversaries in near future.
Every Year only those who pass out with flying colors are moved to Universities where they are trained in related fields such as computer science and military warfare and after that they are tagged as a member of elite army comprising 7000 individuals (for now) who are well versed in spreading digital chaos and confusion on the World Wide Web.
John Demers, the Assistant Attorney General at the US Department of Justice, said that North Korea hackers are becoming world leading bank robbers and disruptors of critical infrastructure. Also, they are found specifically targeting west- mainly the NHS Healthcare of UK.
According to Mr. Demers, hackers belonging to Lazarus Group have so far targeted over 150 countries and have indulged in cyber attack campaigns that are aimed to spread malware such as ransomware and cryptocurrency mining software tools along with the regular draining of digital-currency from e-wallets.
Note- Till the year 2014, North Korea depended on crimes such as drug trafficking, children and young women trafficking to supplement its nuclear ambitions. But from 2017, its Lazarus group was specifically assigned the duty of targeting individuals and organizations from west were found stealing currency and other intellectual property.
Isn’t this serious….?
