This has been one of the cyber crime areas that North Korea has been using to raise revenue:
South Korea and the United States have agreed to strengthen their cooperation in combating North Korea’s stealing of virtual assets, the presidential office here said Thursday.
According to the office, Wang Yun-jong, the third deputy national security adviser, visited Washington from Monday to Wednesday and discussed the issue with Anne Neuberger, the U.S. deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies.
Their talks also covered internet of things security and maritime cybersecurity.
Wang also attended the fourth round of meetings by the Counter Ransomware Initiative (CRI) for in-depth discussions on responding to ransomware and bolstering international cooperation in that area.
Via a reader tip comes news that North Korea has supposedly expanded the number of laws they can execute you for. I think all foreign tourists contemplating visiting North Korea need to keep this in mind:
North Korea is expanding its list of crimes punishable by death, according to reports.
Supreme leader Kim Jong Un’s regime expanded the list of offenses warranting the death penalty from 11 to 16 via revisions of criminal law, according to Yonhap News Agency.
New offenses warranting execution as a punishment include: anti-state propaganda and agitation acts, illegal manufacturing, and the illicit use of weapons are included in the new codes.
“We found that North Korean people rely much more on the market now today than they do on government handouts. The market has caused them to have a little bit more freedom of thought," says @victordcha.
We have China firing ICBMs before the U.S. election and North Korea highlighting its expanding nuclear capabiliites as well. Who is going to be the next bad actor conduct a provocation before the U.S. election?:
South Korea’s spy agency considers North Korea publicizing leader Kim Jong-un’s visit to a previously undeclared uranium enrichment facility earlier this month to be a “US election-conscious move,” Rep. Lee Seong-kweon of the National Assembly intelligence committee said Thursday.
“Kim’s visits to facilities related to North Korea’s nuclear weapons program are rarely ever disclosed this way. The spy agency said the US presidential election was likely the factor behind the decision to publicize this particular visit,” the lawmaker told reporters after a closed-door briefing by the spy agency.
If anyone cares, Kim Yo-jong is out make nuclear threats again:
Kim Yo-jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, vowed Tuesday to “continuously and limitlessly” bolster the North’s nuclear war deterrent against what it called U.S. threats, denouncing the arrival of a U.S. nuclear-powered submarine in South Korea.
The remark came a day after the 7,800-ton USS Vermont entered a major naval base in Busan, 320 kilometers southeast of Seoul, to replenish supplies and provide rest for crew members.
“The DPRK’s nuclear war deterrent to cope with and contain various threats from outside is bound to be bolstered up both in quality and quantity continuously and limitlessly as the security of the state is constantly exposed to the U.S. nuclear threat and blackmail,” Kim said in a statement carried by the North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
This seems more like the Kim regime trying to keep up with the Jones instead of providing any real capability enhancements for the North Korean military. These early warning aircraft if ever completed, would quickly be shot down during any conflict on the peninsula by U.S. and ROK forces:
North Korea appears to be making progress in converting a Russian heavy transport plane into what could be the country’s first airborne early warning (AEW) platform, a report showed Wednesday, citing commercial satellite imagery.
Joseph Dempsey, a research associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, made the analysis based on recent satellite imagery taken of the Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft at the Pyongyang Sunan International Airport.
In the report, Dempsey identified the aircraft as one of three Il-76s the North received from Russia in the 1990s, noting its fuselage had until recently been under a covered structure, suggesting a “possible special-mission role” for the airframe.
Satellite imagery taken on Sept. 8, however, showed the aircraft uncovered, with two vertical struts on the plane “consistent with a possible radar-dome mounting.”
North Korea once again trying to stay in the headlines and are probably hoping to become a Presidential campaign topic. However, they are going to have to do something much more provocative than this to get the Presidential attention they crave:
North Korea fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles in a northeastern direction on Wednesday, South Korea’s military said, further ratcheting up tensions already heightened by its rare disclosure of a uranium enrichment facility last week.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it detected the launches at about 6:50 a.m. from the North’s Kaechon area in South Phyongan Province, north of Pyongyang, and the missiles flew about 400 kilometers.
