The cryptocurrency crush – News – Waynesboro Record Herald – Waynesboro, PA

The Washington Post

North Korea’s use of the global Internet has leapt 300 percent in the past three years, and not only because the elite are doing more online shopping. The regime, according to a new report solidifying earlier findings, has seized on Web-based weaponry to commit cybercrimes and circumvent international sanctions.

North Korea remains dependent on foreign currency, and especially the dollar, which is what makes sanctions an effective pressure mechanism in the first place. But a study by Recorded Future, a Somerville, Massachusetts, digital security group, shows how the nation’s leadership has devised modern methods to conduct cryptocurrency heists and harness blockchain technology to launder funds undetected. This undermines the tried-and-true ways the West has tried to knock pariahs into line, such as going after banking and restricting oil,…